Wolfsbane
by royalstandard
Summary: Lydia wakes up in the Hale mansion next to Derek Hale with no memory of the night before. As her memories return, along with a visit from the newly-resurrected Peter Hale, she finds out why Peter has chosen her and what he plans for her next. -An AU story starting after 209 "Party Guessed"-
1. Chapter 1

**(AU - After episode 209 "Party Guessed")**

Lydia had a horrible headache. It was that kind that makes the inside of your head feel as if it's on fire, and you don't want to open your eyes even when it's dark because any notion of light makes your eyes feel like they might explode. Groaning to herself, her hand going to her temple as she sat up, she smelled the most distinct scent of dust and mold. Peeking through her eyelids, she realized she was in semi-darkness, and her head was safe from exploding for the time-being. Looking around slowly, she realized she was sitting on the dirty floor in the burned out shell of the Hale mansion. How she got here, she hadn't a clue. About a foot away, lay Derek Hale, the brooding and unapproachable older guy she'd seen multiple times before but never really talked to, and he appeared to be unconscious.

"You should go," came a voice out of nowhere, and Lydia sucked in a gasp of air, jumping and looking around for the source. "He's not going to be very happy to see you when he wakes up, and he's going to wake up soon." The voice belonged to the town's veterinarian. Her brow furrowed in confusion as she saw the dark-skinned man step out of the shadows.

"What are you talking about?" she asked impetuously, her fiery spirit coming out even as she nursed a migraine and had no idea how she'd gotten to this creepy house in the first place.

"You don't remember, do you?" Dr. Deaton, the vet, asked her, crouching down to look into her eyes. She raised an eyebrow and pushed herself off of the dirty floor, trying in vain to wipe the crud from her birthday outfit as she moved away from him.

Her birthday! The last thing she remembered clearly was Stiles arriving at her front door with that ginormous box. God only knew what was in it. After that, well, she really couldn't even say the night was a blur because she remembered nothing. That was strange.

"I don't remember, what exactly?"

The doctor smiled a little half-smile and shook his head. "Just go home, Miss Martin. Like I said, it would be best if you weren't around when Derek woke up."

Fixing him with a suspicious look, she glanced down once at Derek and saw him stirring and decided now wasn't the time to prove whether the veterinarian was right or not. If something had happened that would somehow make the brooding young man angry with her, she wasn't in the mood to stick around and see how quickly he could snap her in half with those bulging muscles of his. Turning, she skittered out of the dark, dirty house, picking up a run when she hit the dead leaves outside and not stopping until she was safely within the gate of her family's massive house.

It was still early in the morning, dawn had barely cracked the horizon, and it was the weekend so she figured she had a few more hours she could sleep. She was still shaky and confused since seeing the vet, and she had no idea what had happened last night (which bothered her more than anything else). She wasn't the type of girl to get drunk or to do drugs because she respected herself, but she also hated the idea of losing control of herself for even a minute. Taking those anti-depressants after seeing that _thing_ had been bad enough, and she didn't like the feeling. So forgetting an entire night and waking up in the musty old Hale house when her last memory was opening her front door for sweet, innocent Stiles was not on her to-do list.

Shedding her dirty clothes, she tossed them into a pile on the floor and crawled under her blankets, pulling them up over her head in an attempt to block it all out. Soon enough she was asleep, the cold gradually warming out of her toes as she lay covered by the blankets.

"Well done, Lydia."

The voice was so eerily familiar and she couldn't quite pinpoint why, but it jolted her out of bed instantly. Laying beside her was the same man she'd seen in her dreams before - or had she really been dreaming? she couldn't be sure - and he was smiling triumphantly at her. Her heart raced in fear and she clutched her comforter up to her chest in a subconscious attempt to protect and comfort herself.

"Who are you? What are you doing in my bed? Wait, you're Peter Hale," she amended, remembering the time she'd dreamed about following him down the hallways at school where he'd paused and looked at a picture of himself as a teenager. She still remembered the blue eyes, the pale skin, the animalistic way he looked at her. She still remembered the kiss. It was all coming back to her in a rush now, as if she'd forgotten it all somehow.

"Smart girl," Peter cooed in a proud voice. He sat up in the bed, his rough hand caressing the side of her face, almost scratching her soft skin. "That's why I chose you."

"Chose me..." she left the question open-ended, wanting to know more but not wanting him to know he had piqued her interest.

"Of course: chose you. You're immune, silly. We've been over this."

His tone was mildly reprimanding like an older brother teasing his younger sister, or an owner teasing his pet. His words brought back more memories to her, unwanted memories she knew now she should have wished she could never remember. Her visions of the Hale mansion in its former glory, the kiss with the arresting blue-eyed boy who turned into a grisled, burned man and then a snarling beast that attacked her. Her breath caught in her throat.

"You're remembering now, good girl," Peter cooed, tucking her strawberry blond hair behind her ear as she tensed up beneath his touch. "Thank you for bringing me back, even if you didn't invite me to your birthday party. I can't say I'm not a little hurt, but I'll get over it."

She couldn't find her tongue to speak, so she sat like a statue beside him in the bed, clinging to her comforter until her fingers turned white and went cold from lack of circulation.

"Oh, and happy birthday, by the way. I suppose I never officially said it," he shrugged, retrieving a small purple flower from his pocket, the same flower she'd seen in her visions of him before. Her green eyes widened at the gift and her body refused to react to take it although she sensed he would be incensed if she didn't. "Take it, Lydia."

Instantly, her hand released the comforter and grabbed for the flower, clutching it almost as tightly between her fingers as she'd been holding the blanket. She whimpered slightly, realizing he had more control over her somehow than she had known.

"What do you want from me? I did what you asked. I don't want to do any more," she pleaded, feeling weaker than she wished. The rest of her memories were returning now, how she'd drugged Allison, Jackson, Scott, and Stiles along with the other guests at her party. How she'd blown wolfsbane dust into Derek's face and drug him out to the Hale mansion to complete the ritual to bring Peter back from the dead.

Her eyes widened and she looked over at Peter in a mixture of surprise and disgust. No wonder the vet had told her to disappear before Derek woke up. He would kill her, she had no doubt. There was so much going on that she didn't know, but she knew it was much bigger than her alone. She was merely a pawn, a piece on Peter Hale's chess board for him to move when he wanted her.

"You remember," he stated plainly, smiling that all-knowing smile of his that was beginning to irritate her. It made her feel like she was ten years behind him in learning anything, like she had no control over what was going on in her life, and she hated that.

"I do," she replied as flatly, the emotion having run out of her voice in her fear and weakness.

"Good," he finished, sliding off of her bed and standing by the window in one fluid motion. The distance between them allowed her to relax, and she let out a long breath, watching his back as he stared out through her lacy curtains. "Then you're ready for what I need you to do next."

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. "No, I won't, I can't..." she opened her eyes and saw the determination in his face even though he continued to smile at her. "You can, and you will. You really need to take control of your confidence, Lydia. You need to believe in yourself."

She pursed her lips in consternation and surrender, her shoulders slumping in defeat as tears brimmed in her green eyes. The wolfsbane flower in her fingers twirled as she rolled her fingers back and forth, staring down at it in admitted defeat. She couldn't win against this man. He was something she would never be: a werewolf. She knew it now. Allison wouldn't tell her what was going on, but she'd figured it out. If Peter hadn't appeared to her in her dreams, hadn't given her those weird visions of himself, she never would've believed it, but now she did.

"Now that we've covered that, let's continue to more important matters than your empty pleas to disobey me," he continued in a soothing voice that was poisonous, threatening in its nicety. He came over to the bed, sitting down and facing her this time, taking her chin in his hand and forcing her to raise her eyes to look at him. "I chose you specifically for your immunity, you already know this."

Lydia nodded her head, powerless in the tight grip that held her chin. "Obviously your immunity mattered little in what you've already done other than it linked us instead of turning you, but that wouldn't matter in the long run; I would still be alive again either way. No, it matters in the real task I have slated for you.

"You will be Derek's mate."

Her green eyes widened in disbelief and shock, and she instantly began shaking her head. "No! I don't even know him! He hates me, I know he does. I mean, I would if someone had drugged me and left me passed out in my burned up old house. He'll kill me for bringing you back and using him to do it. I-"

Her words cut off as she saw irritation bloom on Peter's face and realized she'd been about to say 'I can't'. Pursing her lips, she breathed in deeply through her noise and huffed out a breath. "Why?" It was the only thing she could manage to ask after her mini-tirade.

Peter smiled approvingly and released her face. "It's simple really. He can't kill you, but you can kill him."


	2. Chapter 2

Scott had been surprised when she asked him where to find Derek. Thankfully, Scott seemed to have been pretty rattled about what had happened at the police station the night after her party (the news said that kid Matt from school had shot six police officers and then committed suicide by drowning himself afterward), so she'd been able to ask him where to find the older guy without much trouble. She should be at school, but in light of all of the unbelievable supernatural events going on around her, school seemed a little trivial. Her parents would argue that Yale wouldn't accept her if her grades fell, but she wasn't worried about that either. She would get into Yale, she would win her Field's Medal, but right now she had more important issues at hand.

Pushing through the doors which creaked much louder than she would have liked, she winced at the sound and knew it was pointless to sneak around any longer. Still, she walked quietly, her heart beating so strongly she imagined she could hear it. Ringing her hands together, Lydia took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. She could do this; she had to do this. She no longer had a choice. Knowing that she, Lydia Martin, should not be afraid of Peter Hale, she still was. If he was just a man, then she would tell him to kiss her ass, but he wasn't just a man. He was... he was a werewolf. And an alpha at that. The truth was still so surreal and science fiction, she felt she was still having dreams, but this was reality. And a harsh reality at that.

"Tell me one reason I shouldn't kill you right now."

Halting in her tracks, her heart skipping a beat in its already staccato tempo, her green eyes widened and she sucked in a breath. Turning to face Derek, she tried to smile but her nervousness was obvious.

"Derek..."

"Explain, or you die," he replied simply, his blue eyes boring into her like ice as he glared at her. She saw the hatred there, a betrayal he felt that she didn't quite understand, and she doubted herself for a moment. Again, she thought she couldn't do this (what was Peter thinking anyway? Derek probably thought she was insane), but she must. Taking a deep breath, she flashed Derek her kindest smile, allowing her big green eyes to swell into the sweetest, most innocent look she could give him.

"I heard about what happened at the police station - that you were there - and I was just trying to find you to see if you were okay," she admitted. It wasn't a lie, she had heard about what Matt had done, and she was trying to find him. So she knew her heartbeat wouldn't give her away as lying since she technically wasn't. Plus, she'd rehearsed her reasons for coming here a million times before arriving, so she was prepared. She had known he would be skeptical.

"What about Stiles?" Derek asked suddenly, his eyebrows raising as he crossed his arms over his massive chest.

"What... about Stiles?" she asked, confusedly.

"He was there too, and he's in love with you, and he's actually your friend, so I don't see why you would come here worrying about me since you basically almost got me killed the other night," he pointed out, scowling in his usual way. This she hadn't prepared for. He was right, Derek wasn't her friend and she hadn't even talked to him before today. She supposed it did seem out of character.

"Well, Stiles is... he's fine," she finished, with a huff. "And I have more to apologize to you for than him, so well... he's not the point." She was irritated now. She was a popular girl who had no problem talking with boys, but Derek was different. He was so obviously a man, and he was sure of himself. Even boys like Jackson were ultimately just teenagers who thought too highly of themselves and could easily be flattered into submission. Derek was a different story altogether.

"I suppose you do," Derek agreed, not moving as he waited. He waited for this apology she'd said she owed him, and she knew it.

Planting her hands on her hips, she pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. She hated apologizing when someone was expecting an apology. It felt so insincere. "I'm sorry... about the other night after my party."

"About that..." Derek raised a finger, tapping his scruffy lips and beginning to pace as she watched him with wide eyes, confused about how he was reacting to all of this. "You still haven't quite explained why I shouldn't kill you right now for that. Do you even realize what you've done? Who you've resurrected?"

Oh, did she ever know. Inwardly, she screamed for help, for saving from Peter that she would never have.

"Haven't you figured it out yet, Derek?" she asked, exasperatedly, catching him off guard for once. "Haven't you asked yourself how I drug you all the way out to your old house? You aren't exactly light, you know, and I'm a seventeen year old girl." She fixed him with a critical look as he stared dumbly at her. Obviously he hadn't taken that into account.

"I'm not... that heavy. It's all muscle," he argued, childishly. Lydia smiled, knowing she was softening him up whether he liked it or not.

"Well, your body fat index must be pretty low 'cause that was some pretty heavy muscle," she replied, raising an eyebrow. He sniffed precociously and glared down his nose at her as he crossed his arms over his broad chest once more.

"That still doesn't explain why I shouldn't tear out your throat with my teeth."

Lydia smiled, shifting her weight and gesturing with one hand as she explained. "Firstly, you can't kill me, and secondly, you should have figured out by now that I wasn't exactly 'myself' the other night. Peter... possessed me." The words broke as they left her tongue, as if she wasn't supposed to say them, and she looked down and away from him. It was true, Peter had possessed her. He had also ordered her to be completely honest with Derek because he knew his nephew would be able to tell she was lying.

Derek's face was still skeptical, so she continued hurriedly, wanting to get the words out since she'd realized the truth herself. Who else could she tell? Who else would believe her other than Derek? He had been there, he had seen Peter come back. "I've been having dreams, visions of him. He's the one who made me drug everyone, made me blow the wolfsbane powder in your face. I don't remember anything after the first ten minutes or so of my party. Everything is a blur after that. I woke up in that dirty old house of yours, and I've been in a cloud since then."

There was a silence between them as Derek debated what she'd just told him. He uncrossed his arms and took a deep breath, making his white wife-beater swell as his chest rose and fell. Lydia glanced away as he turned to look at her and then slowly looked back at him as if she'd been staring off into space since she'd finished talking.

"We're still not even just because you were possessed or whatever," he concluded finally, raising his eyebrows and climbing up into the broken down old bus that had become his home. Lydia's mouth dropped open in exasperation, and she flitted to follow him into the smelly old bus.

"What can I do to make it up to you?" she asked, honestly wanting to be even with him once again. Her want to even the score between them was sincere, despite what Peter wanted from her. She felt horrible for the actions he had made her do, and she would do anything to make them right.

"For one, you could get your best friend off my back."

"Allison? Wait... why?"

Derek drew in a deep breath and turned to face her, propping himself on the ceiling-to-floor length metal poles on each side of the aisle. "She seems to think her mother's death is my fault. Of course the Argents would blame me for that bitch being unable to handle being a werewolf, but that's not my problem. What is my problem is your little friend wanting to shoot a silver arrow through my heart."

Lydia cocked her head questioningly and pursed her lips in confusion. She hadn't even known Allison's mother was dead. She really was a horrible friend. Maybe that was what Mrs. Argent had been wanting to talk to Allison about the other night before her party...

"Okay," she said simply.

"Okay?" Derek echoed.

"Okay, I'll do it." Reaching out, she offered him her hand to shake to promise she would help him. "And when she's off your back, we'll be even."

Derek raised an eyebrow and ground his teeth together so his jaw tightened, but he shook her hand anyway. "Then we'll be even."


	3. Chapter 3

"Now really isn't a good time, Lydia."

"Oh, stop being so stubborn, Allison. I'm your best friend. Let me in."

After a pause of about twenty seconds, the door to Allison's bedroom door swung inward two inches, and Lydia pushed it gingerly open to see her friend retreating back to her bed. She plopped down on the corner and twirled something in her fingers, not caring to look up as Lydia entered the room. Maybe keeping her promise to Derek wasn't going to be as easy as she imagined. She could tell Allison was deeply upset by the loss of her mother, so much so that she hadn't even told any of her friends. She knew Scott especially didn't know - which was extremely weird considering they were obviously still in love with one another - or he would have been hanging out of her window begging her to tell him what was wrong. Instead, Allison sat alone in her bedroom, her bedroom window closed for the first time in weeks, spinning a metal arrowhead around in her fingers.

Lydia swallowed and walked to the bed, sitting gingerly next to her friend and allowing the silence to settle between them before she tried to speak. If Allison hadn't wanted any of them to know her mother was dead, there had to be a reason. She knew the reason had something to do with Derek and blaming him for her mother's death, but other than that she had no details. She hated being out of the loop - a side effect of being the most popular girl in the school and knowing every tidbit of gossip that flitted around on the tongues of the teenagers in Beacon Hills - and knowing Allison had her own mysterious reasons for keeping something so major from her only made the suspense worse. Lacing her fingers together in her lap, Lydia flattened her lips together and tried desperately not to tap her foot on the floor to ease the building tension she felt in Allison's presence.

"I'm sorry..." she said finally, glancing out of the corner of her eyes at Allison's brown, almost-black curls that shifted slightly as the girl tilted her head away from Lydia, resting her ear on her shoulder and watching the spinning arrowhead the entire time. "I heard about your mom."

Allison nodded slightly and there was a brief silence before she finally answered, "She committed suicide. She left a note... saying she couldn't go... on." Allison got choked up, and Lydia reached for her, wrapping her arms around her friend's shoulders as she began to weep silently against her strawberry blond hair.

"Shhhh. It's okay. It's alright," Lydia soothed, saying the customary words she'd heard people say in situations like these. She'd never lost a parent, or even a relative she was close to, so she couldn't empathize with her friend. But she knew sorrow and sadness, and that she could relate to. "Your mom was a strong woman. She never would have done something that wasn't her choice."

Lydia gently pushed on Allison's shoulders, looking into her brown eyes with a small, comforting smile. "No one can take that away from her. I know that whatever happened was entirely her decision. That means something. She wasn't weak, Allison."

Her black curls bounced as Allison nodded her head, choking back her tears and wiping desperately at her wet face, trying to dry tears that were coming too fast to soak into her shirt as she scrubbed at them. Then, her face hardened and her fingers visibly tightened around the arrowhead she still held in her fingers. She still cried, but the glare of rage in her eyes threw Lydia off guard, and her green eyes widened in response.

"This was all Derek's fault," Allison hissed, sniffing and rubbing her nose on her shirt as she looked down at the arrowhead.

"What... what do you mean?" Lydia asked, although she already knew exactly what Allison meant. She wanted to hear what the girl thought. "How could your mother's suicide have anything to do with Derek Hale?"

Allison shook her head, clamping her lips together and staring up at the ceiling as she did whenever there were too many words for her to speak at one time. Finally, she looked back over at Lydia desperately, and Lydia knew she wanted to tell someone. She'd been keeping the truth from everyone, and Allison wasn't the type of girl to keep her secrets bottled up for too long. She was about to explode.

"Derek... he..." she shook her head again, huffing in frustration as she tried to form the words. "He did something to her and forced her to do this." Her brown eyes bored into Lydia now, and she suddenly felt as if too many people had been violating her with their eyeballs in the past few days.

"You mean because he's a werewolf," Lydia concluded simply. Allison's eyes widened in surprise and she opened her mouth, gaping like a fish out of water. Lydia shrugged her shoulders slightly and chuckled uncomfortably.

"You all couldn't keep me out of the loop forever, you know," she played it off with another shrug. "That Latin you made me read, about the kanima? You didn't expect me to do a little research on my own? While I'm still not sure what that part was all about, I would imagine that thing I saw at the movie shop was, unfortunately, not only a nightmare." She looked down at the burgundy comforter on Allison's bed, noting it appeared untouched and she wondered if her friend had had any sleep since her mother's death. No wonder she looked so haggard and frustrated.

Allison seemed to buy her excuse, and Lydia was thankful she didn't have to confess about Peter Hale and any of her other recent experiences which she had been keeping from her friends. She had her own secrets that she didn't feel like sharing. No one trusted anyone, she supposed.

"You are smarter than you let everyone believe."

Lydia smirked and shrugged her shoulders. "Just don't tell Stiles. He'll get a big head and make some smart comment about 'discovering' me first or something gauche like that." Allison snorted and Lydia smiled, knowing she'd cracked another person's shell for the day. She was just a regular Dr. Phil today. She should be paid for all of the good she was doing for the depression rate in Beacon Hills.

"Back to what you were telling me..." she commented, steering the conversation back to her reason for arriving here in the first place. "What did Derek do to your mom?" Since Derek had neglected on the details, she had to get them from somewhere or she had no way to living up to her end of the bargain and keeping her throat intact.

"He bit her. She didn't want to turn, and it was a full moon, so..."

"So she had to kill herself," Lydia finished for her as Allison nodded in affirmation. Her brown eyes were still so glassy and hard, Lydia shied away from looking at her and glanced around the room, finally noticing how the room looked as if parts of it had been torn apart.

"What in the world happened in here?" she asked.

"I got a little.. angry last night," Allison admitted, tilting her head and shrugging nonchalantly. Lydia's eyes widened and she nodded in fervent agreement but didn't comment further. Now wasn't the time to lecture Allison on the disrepair of her room.

"Do you know why Derek bit her?" she asked quietly, trying not to upset her friend but feeling it was an appropriate question to ask.

"Because he wanted to kill her? Because killing Kate wasn't enough?! I don't know, Lydia! He just did it! That's all that matters: Derek Hale killed my mother, and he deserves to die," Allison cried, throwing the arrowhead across the room. Lydia heard a 'thunk' as it hit something, but she didn't have time to look as Allison stood suddenly from the bed and pulled at her black curls, screaming in agony. "Wasn't Kate enough? How could he be so cruel? How could he be such a bastard?" Allison babbled, falling to her knees on the carpet among a pile of her diaries and make-up accessories she'd thrown onto the floor in the previous tirade that had torn her room apart.

Lydia leapt up from the bed and ran to her side, pulling her into a hug and allowing her to sob into her shoulder once more. "Who will be next? My dad? My grandfather? ME?!" Allison continued to ask, rocking in Lydia's arms, her tears pouring down her face and smearing what little make-up she still wore. Lydia brushed down her hair and rocked with her, shushing her and trying to soothe her with words. The girl ranted about losing her family one piece at a time, about Derek wanting to even the score because he'd lost his entire family, and how she would get retribution for her mother's death.

"You know the difference between retribution and revenge, don't you, Lydia?" she asked finally, after ten minutes of sobbing and rocking and ranting. When she didn't answer, Allison answered her own question, "It's strategy over emotion. Derek has to die to even the score, or more people will keep dying."

Lydia knew about evening the score. She knew only too well. She was caught in the middle of this entire ordeal, and while she knew Allison didn't know the entire story, she didn't know all of the details herself and didn't know how she could make it right.

"Are you sure you know the whole story?" she asked weakly.

"I know Derek Hale is the reason my mother had to kill herself, and that's all there is I need to know," Allison snapped firmly. Lydia smiled blankly and nodded slowly, taking one deep breath and releasing it.

"Any one who comes in the way of that becomes an unfortunate casualty," the dark-haired girl added, the thinly veiled warning sparking Lydia's attention although she didn't show it.

"Just make sure you know all of the facts before you jump to conclusions," Lydia agreed, hoping she could get something into Allison's head past the raging hatred she felt for Derek. Rising from the floor, following Allison's lead as the other girl stood and headed for the door, obviously done with her company for the night, Lydia walked toward the bedroom door and paused as she turned the knob to let herself out. She looked back at Allison with sad eyes and offered her one last, parting smile. "Promise me you'll get all of the details first."

Allison nodded slightly, the only action she was able to give, and Lydia had to accept. She breathed in deeply and turned to exit the room, noticing the arrowhead that had disappeared when Allison threw it across the room. It had sunken sweetly into the panel around the light-switch, splitting the plastic in half as it drove halfway down into the plaster behind the panel. Lydia gulped and left the room with her heart pounding in her chest and her head feeling somehow heavier than it had the morning before.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, walking down the hallways at school, Lydia felt in a daze. Her headache had finally gone away, but she felt off somehow, and she couldn't quite explain it. No one stared at her or whispered about her by their lockers, so she wasn't causing any waves, and perhaps that was precisely the problem. People did drugs at parties all the time, so no one thought anything strange about her birthday party. No one except Scott and Stiles, that was.

Out of nowhere, a body slammed into her, pushing her into the quiet hallway leading to the locker rooms, and her back hit the wall, knocking the air out of her. "Sorry! I'm sorry! Lydia! I didn't mean- You look really beautiful today! I mean, you look beautiful every day, but today you look dazzling, even more so than usual-"

"Shut up, Stiles," Scott reprimanded, pushing his shaven-haired friend out of the way and fixing Lydia with her stern gaze that always made her want to laugh. She had to admit, she was attracted to Scott simply because of his freshly-won popularity, but aside from that his lower jaw was a bit crooked and he had the most humorous way of glaring at someone out of anyone she had ever seen. Needless to say, he didn't frighten her in the least as he glowered at her.

"What did you put in the punch at your birthday party?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and momentarily reminding her of a more childish, thinner version of Derek.

"Maybe it wasn't her, I mean just because it was her birthday party and she was serving the punch and was the only person who wasn't high, it doesn't mean it was her," Stiles offered, gesturing wildly as was his way. Lydia raised her eyebrows as she looked at Scott with a pointedly, 'perhaps-Stiles-is-right' stare.

"Shut UP, Stiles."

"Shutting up." To which Stiles promptly crossed his arms high over his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits and blowing out his cheeks like a puffer fish as if shutting up was the hardest thing in the world for him to accomplish.

"What... did you put in the punch?" Scott repeated, his brown eyes seeming to glow, but Lydia figured it was only her imagination.

"I'm really not quite sure why you're accosting me in the hallway, Scott," she intoned pleasantly, cocking her head to the side like an innocent puppy. "Do you even KNOW Allison's mother died two days ago? Or do you honestly not care? Because you don't seem like the unsympathetic type, so maybe you're just stupid." She batted her eyelashes for extra sting and then stood to walk away from them both, leaving them in the hallway alone before they figured out she was leaving and chased after her.

"Wait! Lydia!" Stiles called after her, winning the race to reach her first like he had a magnet programmed to her magnetic signature that attached him to her. "Excuse my friend, he's had a few blows to the head recently, and he's sort of irritable. What he meant to ask is if you know what may have happened at your birthday party the other night and why we were all witnessing our worst nightmares." He smiled one of those smiles where his teeth were clenched together and his eyebrows rose, a sweet guileless 100%-Stiles smile that softened her whether she liked to admit it or not.

Stopping in the hallway, Stiles almost running into her and creating a pile-up of the three of them, she sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. Clutching her textbooks to her chest, she spilled out the explanation she'd been forming in her head for the past several nights. "I've been having a hard time since Peter Hale bit me, and I've been... seeing him, and he basically possessed me and had me drug all of you. Derek's been helping me through it." The last part was stretching the truth a bit, but she figured his name would get a reaction out of the two boys.

"Derek? Hale?" Scott asked stupidly.

"Like... hairy, grumpy, irritable, grouchy Derek Hale?" Stiles added, scrunching up his nose as if he smelled something.

"Well, I'm kind of helping him, I guess. I don't know! It doesn't matter, I just..." she paused and took a deep breath, drawing herself up to her full height (which was still several inches shorter than both of them), "I'm sorry. I never would have done such a thing to any of you, and I'm sorry."

Stiles nodded as if that proved something, and he smiled triumphantly at Scott who glowered back at him in confusion. Smiling dismissively at them both, she continued, "And now I'm late to Chemistry. I'll see you both later." With that, she turned on her heel and left them contemplating all over the hallway, glad she didn't have to explain herself further.

Following Chemistry class, Lydia darted out as soon as possible to avoid speaking with anyone she knew. Allison, especially. The dark-haired beauty had a dark cloud around her that almost literally consumed anyone who got close to her, and she didn't look up past her notebook most of the time. Scott was obviously still clueless, although he now knew about her mother's death (how that hadn't come up before now, Lydia would never figure out), and she simply didn't feel like hanging around to talk to Stiles again while he yammered at her like always. Leaving them all behind, she hurried toward the cafeteria and her daily salad topped with pale, crusty croutons accompanied with sickly carrots and tomatoes. It wasn't the most delightful meal she could imagine, but it gave her something else to do other than try to figure out a way to keep Allison from killing Derek.

And there was that other thing too.

Peter's plan still rang in her mind, and she cringed just at the thought of it. He had set her aside to be Derek's mate because she was immune to him (literally) and she could kill him. He hadn't gone into detail about the latter, only that she somehow had to get on Derek's good side and make him fall in love with her. Or at least choose her to be his mate. How in the world she was going to do such a thing was beyond her. Derek was unlike any male she'd ever known; he was dark and brooding and downright grumpy (to coin Stiles's phrase). She was known throughout the school, and all of Beacon Hills, as being the bouncy, sunshiny girl with the strawberry blond hair and the best clothes. How she was going to figure out this dilemma, she had no clue.

Besides, she didn't love Derek; she didn't even know him! If she had ever loved anyone, that had been Jackson. But now he wanted nothing to do with her and acted like he was better than she was. Not that he had been a great boyfriend all along anyway - he was, honestly, an asshole - but they had had some pretty good times. She still loved him although she shouldn't.

Sighing to herself, she almost ran into the blonde before she saw her and drew up short. Looking up at the girl who stood a foot taller than herself, Lydia groaned inwardly as she recognized Erica. The girl who had once been the unnoticed one, the girl with no figure and frumpy clothes and horrible hair. Now, she was 'Erica' and the boys drooled all over her and her tight-fitted leather pants.

"Lydia," she drawled, her red lipstick freshly reapplied if its brightness was any clue. Lydia smiled an irritated smile and tried to push past her, but the female werewolf easily stopped her. Her elbow dug into Lydia's shoulder, driving her back against the half wall that lined one side of the cafeteria. "That's not very nice, Lydia. I'm talking to you."

"No, you're actually assaulting me, if you want to get literal," she corrected irritably, cocking her head and glaring at the taller blonde. "Now please remove your leather-clad arm from my collarbone." She shoved her tray forward, driving it into Erica's hip, but the girl merely grimaced and pushed harder.

"What are you doing with Derek?" she hissed, jealousy clear in her voice although Lydia couldn't understand why. "If you're going to hurt him, I'm going to have to kill you." Erica smiled, her too-white teeth reflecting the light of the sun as it blared through the window.

"What am I doing with Derek? I'm not doing ANYTHING with him; I barely know the guy. I just went to apologize to him," Lydia snapped, squirming to get away but unable to fight the brawn of the werewolf girl. "Now, remove yourself before I remind you what an epileptic seizure feels like."

The biting remark clearly threw Erica's composure, and she loosened her pressing hold just long enough that another figure grabbed her and shoved her away. Surprised by the intrusion, Lydia watched with wide eyes as Jackson pushed Erica away so fast the other girl slammed into a nearby table and shook her head dazedly. Seeing who had attacked her, Erica seemed to second-guess retaliating, and settled for shooting Lydia a dirty look before stalking away.

"Jackson..." she whispered when the other students began eating again, having already forgotten the incident. He fixed her with his blue-green eyes, his spiked dirty blond hair perfect just like his expensive button-up shirt and perfectly fitted blue jeans. She swallowed heavily, her feelings for him resurfacing in his presence, more strong than she'd expected.

"Meet me in the locker room," he whispered, and then he was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Pushing open the door to the boys' locker room, Lydia stepped inside into the dimly lit area. It smelled like sweat and field hockey, and she scrunched up her nose in disgust. Why Jackson had insisted she meet him here, she had no idea. He should know her better than to think she would enjoy being in the smelliest room in the entire school.

"Jackson?" she called quietly, her voice reverberating louder in the metal room than she'd expected. She glanced between the rows of lockers, squinting since it was hard to see with nothing but the sunlight glaring through the row of windows lining the point on the walls where they met with the ceiling. That glare did little to light the room this far down, and she brushed her hair out of her eyes in an attempt to see better as she walked farther into the locker room. "Jackson... where are you? You asked me to meet you here and now you're hiding? Exactly how childish is that?" she griped.

She knew, despite her attempts to shut down her feelings for him, she still loved him. She'd been hurt when he'd yelled at her that one time in the hallway, and she'd hated him, but she loved him at the same time. They'd been together since middle school, and there were many fun memories to counteract the bad. Then there was the time at Scott's house when he'd kissed her after she told him she hated him... it was all too confusing. After they'd broken up, he'd been acting like an asshole to her, and she didn't want to play games with him anymore.

"Jackson, if you don't show yourself right now, I'm leaving." She had reached the junction between the lockers and the showers, and she still saw no one. Her heart was beating faster now as an inexplicable feeling of dread settled over her, and she crossed her arms, rubbing her elbows although the locker room was probably the hottest room on campus.

Feeling a prick on the back of her neck, she spun, fully prepared to launch into a tirade on Jackson for playing games with her, but her throat constricted as she came face-to-face with a snarling reptile and its deadly golden eyes. Her green eyes widened in fear, her heart beating in her ears and deafening her, and she opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. The creature advanced slowly on her, forcing her backward to get away from it so she was standing in the shower room. The twirling fan on the wall sliced the light pouring in from outside, creating a strobe light effect that only added to her anxiety.

A low hissing rose from the beast's mouth, and she realized it was starting to speak, a slithering sound that grated on her mouth and spine. "Do tell what Peter Hale wantsss you to do, Lydia," it hissed, its putrid breath warming her face and making her nauseous, "And I may ssspare your life."

She was backed up against the tiled wall of the shower now, and she began trembling in fear. But she couldn't let that fear show, at least as little as was possible.

"I.. don't know... what you're talking about," she lied, closing her eyes and cringing as the creature leaned even closer to her. An involuntary whimper escaped her throat as its claws began to close around one of her wrists.

Suddenly, a load roar filled the locker room, and her eyes snapped open to see the lizard was gone. Glancing around frantically, she saw its long tail snapping around as it leapt away from its attacker, leaping into the rafters. Following closely behind was a leather-clad male with black hair. He dodged the dangerous tail and claws, grabbing the scaled beast and flinging it across the room. It flew at the window, spinning in midair so it sailed out through the glass, shattering the windows and raining glass all over the locker room. Lydia covered her head as shards rained down around her, and she realized she was shaking.

"Are you okay?" asked a familiar voice, and she timidly looked up to see Derek dressed in his black leather jacket, his scruffy face regarding her with a mixture of concern and irritation. Stiles was right, he was really grumpy.

"I'm... fine," she managed, drawing herself up and brushing glass off of her clothes and out of her hair. She looked up at him with a suspicious look. "How did you know I was in here anyway?"

Derek smiled slightly, the first sincere smile she'd ever seen him wear. "Your heart was beating so loud, I bet every werewolf in the state could hear it. Plus, I was already tracking Ja-... the kanima and you happened to lead me right to him." He shrugged nonchalantly.

Lydia nodded slightly and cleared her throat uncomfortably. "You just saved my life..."

He shrugged again and smirked as he glanced over at her. "I did."

She pursed her lips and smiled, the fear from her near-death experience wearing off and leaving her feeling giddy. "I guess that puts us right back where we started then."

"I guess so, since Allison still wants to kill me..." He turned away and walked off through the locker room, disappearing into the semi-darkness almost instantly thanks to his black jacket. Lydia sighed loudly and smacked her head against the tile wall as she slumped against it. Derek had saved her life, and she'd drugged him and almost gotten him killed. That made the score 2-0. If she didn't stop Allison from trying to kill him, then she wouldn't have only failed Peter, it would confirm she was a horrible person.


	6. Chapter 6

Lydia was angry.

She was very good at controlling her temper, but when she did get angry, it was bad. Her mind got extremely focused, and she got shit done. She had just gotten attacked by a snake with legs, stood up by Jackson, and saved by Derek (making the ratio uneven between them yet again). Everything added up to giving her a temper. Stomping down the hallway and out into the quad, she found Allison and grabbed her, bodily pulling her along until they were alone in a classroom away from the rest of the students. Allison pulled away from her, frowning and protesting.

"Lydia, what is wrong with you?" she asked, stepping away from her friend and straightening her clothes. Crossing her arms over her tiny chest, Lydia set her feet firmly and fixed Allison with a penetrating glare.

"You need to forget about killing Derek, plain and simple," she stated matter-of-factly. Allison rolled her eyes and shook her head, turning to leave.

"You don't understand, Lydia. Just stay out of it."

"No. You don't understand, Allison," she retorted, drawling out the other girl's name and grabbing her arm to keep her from leaving the room. "About fifteen minutes ago, I got stood up by Jackson, almost got killed by a man-eating lizard, and Derek saved my life. Needless to say, my afternoon is not going well. But that's not the point: Derek didn't kill your mother, she killed herself, Allison. You can't blame him for something that was entirely her choice."

The rage glowed in Allison's eyes as her hands dropped to her sides when she heard Lydia's words. She stepped forward, her angular jaw clenching tightly in umbrage.

"You have no idea what you're in the middle of, Lydia," the black-haired girl hissed, pointing a long finger at her. "You're just talking off the top of your head without knowing what you're talking about!" She gestured wildly over her head as she spoke, her arms flailing about indignantly.

"Then tell me what I'm missing! Because I'm not seeing how I'm missing anything. You're the one who can't see the truth through your own hatred for a man who hasn't done what you think he did!"

Allison pursed her lips in an angry smile and shook her head, her brown eyes focusing intently on Lydia. "Fine. You want to know? I'll tell you everything.

"That lizard that attacked you? That IS Jackson, and Derek's the one who turned him. He bit him and turned him into that thing. That is his fault. That's why he saved you: because he feels guilty for turning Jackson - your ex-boyfriend - into a killer, a monster. Matt wasn't the one who killed those people at the police station: Jackson was, but it's not him, it's that monster he's become. You can thank Derek for that."

Allison spat the words and left them hanging between the two of them, leaving Lydia stunned. Jackson hadn't stood her up... He had baited her into the locker room and he was going to kill her. But he'd wanted to know something first: what Peter's plan was. She hadn't told him, so she'd survived. And Derek had seemed to show up at a rather opportune time. He'd claimed he could hear her heartbeat, but why had he been there in the first place? Then she remembered something else he'd said: "I was already tracking Ja-... the kanima and you happened to lead me right to him." He'd been about to say Jackson's name - she knew now - but he'd caught himself. He'd admitted he was tracking the boy. He wasn't just a knight in shining armor; he was protecting the monster he'd created.

She was so stunned she didn't notice as Allison turned and stormed out of the classroom, leaving her alone to wallow in the reality that was her tempest of a life.

* * *

Stumbling blindly from the tears that clouded her eyes and the betrayal, the anger she felt, Lydia shoved through the doors into Derek's hideout. "Derek!" she screamed in fury. "Derek, show your face, you lying bastard!" Her voice turned into a shriek, and she choked it down, the sound morphing into a sob as she plunged toward the derelict bus.

Her Jackson was a monster. It was all Derek's fault, and he'd led her to believe she was the one at fault here. She'd only started talking to him because of Peter's stupid plan, his stupid commands, and she'd defended him. She'd stood up for him to her own best friend, had believed he wasn't the antagonist. But he was. He'd turned Jackson into that thing, that murderous beast that had come inches away from taking her life. Her Jackson would never do that. He may be a jerk, but he wouldn't kill people. He wouldn't kill her.

"DEREK!" she screamed again, almost tripping on the uneven floor and yelling in frustration and desperation.

Suddenly, he was right in front of her, his ice blue eyes glaring down at her. She was sobbing so violently she could barely stand upright, but the sight of him rankled her. Lunging toward him, she began beating her tiny fists on his chest and raging at him, knowing inwardly that she would never hurt him but hoping she could. "You liar! You asshole! You turned him into that thing. You made him a monster. My Jackson... He would never..."

Her sobs broke into her words and her tongue felt too thick to speak. She slammed her fist into his hard, broad chest until her muscles began to ache and the sadness began overwhelming the rage. Finally, Derek grabbed her wrists as she began to sink to her knees, and he drug her up into the bus, setting her in one of dirty old seats. Burying her head in her hands, her shoulders racked with sobs. No wonder Jackson had started hating her. He was a monster; he didn't know what he was doing.

"You know," Derek stated simply, lacing his fingers together, his elbows resting on his knees.

She glared up at him, her mascara having run down her face and her cheeks red from too much crying. Her eyes burned, and her heart felt as if it might explode from sorrow. "You made him a monster." The words were full of her hatred for him, but he didn't flinch. Instead he looked up at her, fixing her with his blue eyes.

"No, I didn't. I bit him because he asked me - begged me - to. I never knew he would become a kanima. I had no way of knowing."

"You should have known! You shouldn't have done it!" she protested, smacking the palms of her hands hard down on the top of the seat in front of her.

"How could I have known?!" he asked incredulously, tossing his hands up in the air in exasperation. "I didn't know his parents died before he ever knew them. I didn't even know for sure that he was kanima at first, and even then, I didn't know it was him. We all believed the bite hadn't turned him, that he was somehow immune to it like you were."

Shaking her head, she crossed her arms and looked away from him, through the dingy windows of the bus. Derek sighed and leaned over onto his knees once more.

"He's a kanima, and he doesn't control his actions. He has a master, and it's Allison's grandfather," he informed her, bringing her attention back to his face in disbelief. "It was Matt, but after he died, somehow Gerard became his master. He tells him what to do, who to kill. When he's not the kanima, he doesn't remember any of it or even believe that he changes."

He looked at her out of the tops of his eyes, sighing slightly as she regarded him in silence. "If that makes you feel any better... I've been trying to figure out how to change it, how to save him. Scott doesn't want to kill him, and I don't really either since, like you said, he's my responsibility. But I don't know how. I'm a werewolf, I have no idea what a kanima thinks or how to transform one into something else."

She didn't want to speak to him at first, but what he said made sense. He seemed sincere when he said he hadn't done this to Jackson on purpose, and she had a good sense of honesty. Derek may be brooding and grouchy, but he was an honest person from what she'd seen of him.

"His parents..." she began. "Losing his parents turned him into this?"

Derek nodded, "It has something to do with that. He can't fully transform into a werewolf until he 'resolves that in [his] past which manifests [him]'." She recognized the quote from a passage of Archaic Latin Allison had recently asked her to translate.

"So if we can help him resolve the issue..." Lydia offered, drying the tears off of her face and wiping away a bit of the mascara.

"...then he should fully transform into a werewolf, and he will no longer be a killer lizard," Derek finished, shrugging slightly. Lydia nodded, already deep in thought.

"I think I know how to fix that problem," she stated, her mind set on saving Jackson. Even if he didn't love her anymore, he was still important to her, and she couldn't live with him being some murderous monster for the rest of his life. She realized this desire probably conflicted with Peter's plans for her being Derek's mate, but she didn't give a damn. He could either wait or kiss her ass because Jackson's plight was more important.

"I'd love to hear any suggestions," Derek intoned, leaning on the floor-length pole beside him. Lydia smiled conspiratorially but held up one finger to tell him to wait.

"Let's get one thing straight first. We work together to save Jackson, and then we're even."

"And Allison still wants me dead," he noted, squinting his eyes in a frown.

"True, but she thinks you killed her mother, so I don't know how much of a help I'm going to be in that department. Besides, she's probably pretty mad at me now thanks to what I said to her earlier."

"Well, I didn't kill her mother, if that's what you need to know," he explained patiently as he'd done before. "The truth is that her mother - crazy bitch that she was - was going to kill Scott. She had him drugged, and he was going to die, and I heard him and I ran in to save him. As we were escaping, I bit her and we ran off. That's it. She died because she killed herself, not because of anything I did."

He pouted, a look that was rather entertaining on a man of his musculature, and his shoulders slumped tiredly. Lydia stifled a giggle at the sight and raised her eyebrows. "Mrs. Argent was going to kill Scott?"

"Yep. She had the wolfsbane snifters going so strong I almost passed out when I came in the room. He was about five minutes from biting the dust."

Lydia's eyebrows raised once more, the corners of her mouth drawing down as she sniffed a 'hmm' sound. If Allison only knew the truth, if she'd listened to her advice and gotten all the facts, then they wouldn't be feuding right now.

"I'll see what I can do about that, but I can't make any promises. Do we have a deal though? We work together; we save Jackson?" she asked, fixing him with her determined gaze and extending a hand for him to shake. He glanced down at her hand dubiously and then back up at her with a matching look of determination.

"We have a deal."


	7. Chapter 7

In the midst of the craziness that had become her life, Lydia had completely forgotten about prom. It was only two weeks away, and she was the head of the prom committee. It was only Junior Prom, but that didn't lessen its importance any as far as she was concerned.

"Yes, I understand, Annie. I'll buy the streamers this weekend, don't worry. Everything will be ready in time. Bye, bye now." Hanging up her cellphone, Lydia took a deep breath and fell back onto her bed, her strawberry blond hair spilling out around her in waves.

She and Derek had a deal. They were going to save Jackson, turn him back into the boy she loved, and then what? They were even, but where did that leave her? Would Jackson remember his feelings for her? Perhaps the way he'd been treating her, being an asshole to her, had all been part of his transformation into that monster that had attacked her in the locker room. Derek claimed Jackson didn't remember any of it, anything associated with his time as a kanima, so perhaps he'd been walking around in a fog of amnesia for a month or more. Hope sprang up in her chest whether she liked it or not, and she knew she still loved him somewhere. It may be deep down inside, but the spark of it was still there. She remembered that night in Scott's house when she'd told Jackson she hated him and returned his house key. He'd known she was lying, and she'd admitted she should hate him; the words going unsaid that she didn't hate him.

As her confusion over her lingering feelings for Jackson came to a boil, she couldn't ignore the pressing matter of Peter's demands. He wanted her to make Derek fall in love with her, to make her his mate, but for what? He'd threatened the lives of her friends, of her family, and she was obliged to obey. But with the hope of Jackson returning to his old self - a boy she had truly been in love with once - she couldn't ignore the lack of emotion she had for Derek. She barely knew him outside of this week when she'd gone to apologize, and she certainly didn't trust him even if they were in this deal together. But she was supposed to manipulate him into trusting her, falling in love with her, and all so she could ultimately kill him at Peter's behest.

All of it made her nauseous, and she rolled onto her side and closed her eyes to block out her bedroom and the world around her. Reaching onto her nightstand, she retrieved the bottle of pills she'd been given by the doctor when she'd seen Peter in his wolf form that first time. Opening it, she dropped one pill into the palm of her hand and swallowed it, chasing it with two gulps of water from the glass which also sat on the nightstand. One good night's sleep, and she would worry about it all tomorrow.

* * *

A week and a half passed, alternating between laboring on the prom committee and working with Derek to formulate a plan to resolve Jackson's issues with his past. When she wasn't buying streamers and arranging for someone to fix the punch, she was tirelessly researching Jackson's family history, finding every fact she could about his parents and their deaths.

Despite all of her hard work, one issue remained unresolved, and it plagued her. Allison. She hadn't spoken with the other girl since their argument over Derek, and she missed her friend. She knew Allison must still be grieving over the loss of her mother, and she hadn't been the friend she should have been to the girl.

"Allison!" she called, chasing after the taller, longer-legged girl down the corridor between Chemistry and Algebra II. Allison ignored her, surely still fuming over their disagreement. "Allison, please, wait for me." Finally she caught up to the other girl, grabbing her sleeve to slow her.

Turning and rolling her eyes in aggravation, Allison stopped and stepped back from her, balking as if Lydia's very touch was anathema to her. "What do you want?" Her tone was hard and empty, her patience wearing thin with this confrontation.

Sighing, Lydia went into her apology, "I'm sorry for those things I said. You're mad about your mother's death, sad that she's gone, and I wasn't very understanding." She ached to tell her the truth about who was controlling the kanima - Allison's own grandfather! - but now wasn't the time. If she was going to succeed in repairing their friendship, demonizing Gerard Argent wasn't the first step in doing so.

Tears shone in Allison's dark eyes and she nodded, too choked up for words. "I'm sorry too," she managed, finally making eye contact with her smaller friend. "I shouldn't have told you about Jackson... not like that."

Looking away, Lydia pasted on a smile and drew herself up to her full height confidently. "It's fine. I needed to know."

"I'm still sorry about how I said it. It was a little harsh," Allison continued, smiling an apologetic half-smile. "I forgive you," Lydia commented, instinctively embracing her friend in a hug. Allison hugged her back, and she knew all was forgiven.

The truth of her grandfather's secret still plagued Lydia, but she must keep it to herself for now. The time to reveal such a huge secret would come, but she couldn't do it now.

"So when are you going to help me with Prom? It's only a few days away, and I need someone to help hang streamers," Lydia piped, releasing Allison and beginning to bounce away to their next class. "With your exceptional height and balance, I commandeer you to stand on the ladder and tape paper to the gym ceiling." Allison laughed and followed Lydia down the hallway to their Algebra class.

* * *

With their newly repaired friendship, the two girls skipped out early from school the Friday before the Prom to go dress shopping. Lydia promised to buy anything Allison wanted and couldn't afford - ignoring the other girl's protests - and they returned home four hours later with two new dresses each, matching shoes and handbags, as well as earrings and even a box of truffles Lydia insisted was 'part of the experience'.

Standing in her bedroom alone, having already eaten dinner and decided she would model her new dresses for herself to decide which one she preferred for the Prom, Lydia twirled in front of her mirror, holding the red dress up over her tight-fitted yoga capris and tanktop. Scrunching up her nose at the sight, she tossed the dress on the bed and retrieved the green one, holding it up to her chest. The color made her eyes look amazing and somehow made her hair look redder than the red dress did. Pulling off her tanktop over her head and stepping out of her pants, she pulled the green dress up over her hips and zipped it up the back.

She examined herself in the mirror with squinted eyes as she spun slowly back and forth to see herself from all angles. The bodice was decorated with sparkling sequins down to the high waistline where a black sash and bow decorated the dress. The bottom half of the dress was gathered in wide gathers, creating a ruffled bubble skirt with a soft satiny glow. Reaching up, she grabbed her hair, fluffing it and dropping the curls around her shoulders. The contrast of her strawberry blond tresses and green eyes stood out so wildly with the green dress, she knew instantly this was the outfit for her.

A breeze blew in from outside, ruffling her hair, and she realized she'd forgotten to close the window as the temperature outside dropped with nightfall. Walking to the window, she took a long deep breath of the fresh air and stood with the wind lifting her hair, gently caressing her face and tossing her hair around like a plaything. She smiled, pleased that her plan to save Jackson was going to work and everything would be okay.

"Good choice, the green looks better on you than the red."

Starting with surprise, Lydia gasped and backed up from the window so fast she tripped and landed on her butt on her bed. Looking around the room, she saw Derek emerge from the shadows, his black leather jacket covering a black tee-shirt and black jeans. Why he felt the need to blend in so succinctly to the darkness, she had no idea. Narrowing her eyes at him, she stood and brushed her skirt down, her red hair still floating around her shoulders as she faced him.

"What in the world are you thinking sneaking into my bedroom? Did you not think my parents could see you? Or better yet, I could have a heart attack when you surprise me like that?" She smacked him on his shoulder, causing him to glare at her in his usual grouchy way. Grumbling to herself, she shoved past him and double-checked that her bedroom door was locked before turning to face him once more, her hands planted firmly on her tiny hips.

"How long were you watching me dress and undress before you decided to let me know you were here?" she asked crossly.

Rolling his eyes, Derek answered, "I just got here after you already had the green dress on. I saw you hold up the red one when I was coming through the field toward the house. And why do I need to defend myself to you anyway? You're the one with the window wide open to the world as you change clothes!" He gestured exasperatedly and moved away from her to stand by the window.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she shrugged nonchalantly and fixed him with a contemplative eye. "Well, why are you here?" She felt a bit uncomfortable standing before him in her prom dress, and she didn't know why. Brushing a stray curl of her hair back over her bare shoulder, she waited patiently for his explanation.

"I'm going to prom with you," Derek stated simply.

Lydia snorted before she could catch herself, to which he frowned. "You didn't think you were going to go alone to face the kanima, did you?" he asked skeptically. She snorted again and shook her head, turning away from him to look at herself in the mirror once more. He was right, the green did look marvelously better on her than the red would. "I wouldn't be alone; I'd have Allison and Scott and Stiles. I'm sure Stiles would jump at the opportunity to escort me to another dance."

Her eyebrows raised and she fixed him with a chastening gaze. Derek growled in his throat, that sense of impotence he always felt around her - this tiny girl he could easily snap with his teeth - overwhelming him. Somehow, Lydia managed to throw her confidence in his face and make him believe that she just might be able to survive without his help.

"Oh, Stiles would kill himself to get a chance to take you to that dance, but he won't be doing it. I'm going with you, no questions."

Whirling to face him, stalking over until she was standing right in front of him glaring up at him, Lydia stabbed a finger into his chest. "Where do you think you get the right to show up in my bedroom and TELL me you're going to Prom with me? If you want to go to Prom with me, then you ASK, you don't demand it."

She huffed and crossed her arms again, glaring heatedly up at him. This little sprite could put him in his place so easily, a burly werewolf who was twice her size and at least twice her strength, it was bewildering. "You can't be serious right now," he lamented.

"You have no idea how serious I am," she replied simply, her green eyes boring into him, the sequins on her dress sparkling in the dying sunlight that filtered through the still-open window. "This is my first Prom, and I will not be attending it with a required escort. I'd rather go by myself than be hijacked into going with you. I have more self-respect than that."

Huffing out a breath, she turned away once more, walking to her closet to pull out her pajamas as if the discussion was over. Derek fumed stubbornly next to the window, his jaw tightening as he clenched his teeth. "Fine," he said finally. Lydia smiled only because she was facing away from him, into the closet, and knew he couldn't see her face. "Lydia... will you... gotoPromwithme?" He murmured the words so fast, she almost couldn't understand them. Turning and raising an eyebrow, a questioning look on her face, she smiled politely.

"What was that, Derek?" He glared daggers at her and clenched his fists against his sides.

"Will you... go to Prom with me?" he repeated, forcing a smile that looked like a grimace and made Lydia smile in amusement. "PLEASE?"

Giggling, she turned back to the closet and pretended to rummage through more of her clothes. "I'll have to think about it." He groaned audibly and she heard a thump as he banged his head back against the wall in irritation. "I mean... I have a lot of options..."

"Oh, come on already!"

"Okay, fine. You did ask first..." Derek threw his hands up in defeat and shook his head. Lydia smiled in amusement and pulled her pajamas out of the closet, tossing them onto the bed.

"You can pick me up at eight, oh, and Derek?" she chirped pleasantly, to which he frowned over at her, "Don't forget to wear a boutonniere."

He groaned and slipped out through the window, grumbling grouchily to himself as he climbed down off of her roof and disappeared into the night.


	8. Chapter 8

When the doorbell rang, Lydia allowed Derek a good five minutes to wait for her before she decided to descend the stairs to meet him. It was only proper. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror, dressed in her sparkling and satin green gown with her strawberry blond hair pulled up into a messy coif, curls spilling over and bouncing next to her face and tickling the back of her neck. She wore high-heeled black heels whose satiny finish matched the black satin bow at her waist. Grabbing her handbag from her bed, she figured the five minutes were up, and she left her room behind.

Descending the staircase which led to the foyer and the front door, she eyed the opening in the wall where she would first get to see Derek before he could see her. As she passed it, she glimpsed him through the hole and her heart leapt to her throat. She didn't know what she'd expected, whether it be him showing up in his usual get-up of a leather jacket and jeans, but what she saw was not what she'd been anticipating. His tall, muscular frame was bedecked in a perfectly fitted tuxedo, the stark contrast of his white shirt and bowtie against the black of the suit instantly marking him as an image of attractiveness. He had refused to shave, a note that made Lydia smile in amusement because of how stubborn he was, but somehow the scruff only made him more smoldering. Her heart picked up its pace, and she knew he would be able to hear it, so she tried to calm herself as she passed the wall and became bathed in the light of the chandelier in the foyer.

The sequins on her green dress tossed dancing sparkles of emerald light around the room as she glided down the stairs and caught Derek's eye. His eyes widened slightly, catching her mother's attention so she turned and looked at her daughter with a wide smile. She'd been keeping Derek company while Lydia made him wait. "Oh honey! You look beautiful! Let me get a picture."

Her mother shoved her toward Derek, and she stumbled slightly before he caught her with his arm around her waist. Uncomfortable, she smiled shyly up at him before looking at the camera as her mother exclaimed, "Say cheese!" The flash went off, and Lydia blinked, feeling momentarily disappointed as Derek's arm instantly moved from her waist and dropped to his side. She smelled, now that she was close enough to him, that he'd bothered to put on cologne, and that realization made her appreciate his presence even more.

"What is wrong with this thing?" her mother griped, smacking the camera with the palm of her hand. "Something's wrong with the flash, and it completely washed you both you. All I can see is a horrible glare. Let me take another."

"We should really be going," Derek interjected, smiling politely with what was probably the first smile Lydia had ever seen on his face. Realizing that her mother would never get a clear picture of them without Derek's eyes messing with the camera's lens, Lydia nodded fervently and grabbed Derek's hand, pulling him after her toward the door.

"He's right, Mom. We're going to be late, and I'm the head of the Prom committee!" she chirped, dragging Derek along toward the door. Her mother protested, wanting another photograph, but they escaped just in time to refuse her.

As soon as they were outside, Lydia self-consciously dropped his hand and glanced down the sidewalk to see a sleek black limousine awaiting her. Her eyes widened in surprise, and Derek had to gently push her to keep her walking toward the vehicle. "Wow... this..." she paused and glanced over at him, but realized she was going to blush so she looked back at the limo. "This is nicer than I thought."

Derek smiled a small smile and opened the door for her, beckoning her inside and following after as she climbed in. "I may not have gone to my own prom, but that doesn't mean I don't know how it's done." When they were seated, Lydia smiled and inspected the inside of the car, looking everywhere but at him. She didn't want her heart to betray how very handsome he looked in his tuxedo.

"This is for you," he said, reaching toward her with a white carnation corsage. She smiled brilliantly and took the flower, pulling it on over her wrist and securing it where she would wear a bracelet. "Thank you. It's beautiful," she admitted, venturing a glance at him. Instantly, she noticed the matching boutonniere pinned to his lapel, and her heart did a somersault.

Lydia loved romance and romantic things, and Prom was the epitome of everything romantic to her. She had never dreamed she would be going to her Junior Prom with Derek Hale, but it was turning out more pleasantly than she'd imagined when she'd agreed to go with him simply so their plan could go off without a hitch. She looked away from him and out the tinted windows as thoughts of Peter's plan ran through her mind. Looking the way he did tonight, she could easily imagine herself romantically involved with Derek. Any teenage girl in her right mind would want to kiss him right now, but she still felt guilty for feeling that way. If Derek thought of her any way at all, that was only as a friend, and she wasn't so impetuous as to believe people could fall in love in just a few weeks. She had grown to appreciate Derek's company, to be entertained by his presence even and to recognize his little pet peeves she was so good at exacerbating, but they weren't in love.

And those thoughts led right back to Jackson. He had been the last boy she'd been in love with, and he had broken her heart and then led her to believe she still had a chance. As far as she knew, it was all a part of the kanima and none of the kiss at Scott's house had anything to do with the real-Jackson. Part of her hated not knowing, but another part of her - a stronger part - realized that she was moving on. Naturally, she was forgetting him and the hurt he'd caused her, and her heart was ready for something new. She'd tried something new with Scott, but he hadn't been the one. She'd really only wanted him because he was popular, and she loved experimenting, but it had upset Allison and she didn't want a boy to come between the two of them. Their friendship meant more than a boy.

Of course, there was Stiles, but he was too innocent and sweet for her. She knew he loved her - he'd confessed as much to her at the Winter Formal - but she could never be with him. She knew somehow she would end up breaking his heart, and she couldn't bare the thought of that. She loved the playful, happy-go-lucky Stiles who was enamored with her, and the thought of that changing for the worse kept her away from him romantically. Sometimes, romance only got the in the way and didn't make things better.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't realize they had reached the Prom until the limo came to a halt and the door swung outward to release them. Coming to her senses, she climbed gracefully out of the car and gazed up at the high-end hotel the school had rented for the occasion. For a while, the Prom committee had been planning to hold the event in the gym at the school, but at the last minute a generous anonymous donor had donated a large sum of money for the celebration, and they'd been able to rent the ballroom in the nicest hotel in the city. The tinkling lights and music wafting from the hotel caught her up in their music, and she glanced over at Derek in a dreamy daze as he offered her his arm to escort her inside. Smiling brightly, her eyes shining with the magic of it all, she laced her arm through his and allowed him to lead her inside.

The instant they entered the dance, every girl in the immediate vicinity glared jealously at her. With her shimmering green dress accenting her hair and eyes, and the most handsome man in the room on her arm, Lydia instantly became the point of contention for every girl attending, excluding the few - like Allison - who only had eyes for one boy. "It appears we've made an impression," Derek murmured to her in a low voice. Her nose wrinkled as she giggled and nodded in agreement, walking with him toward the crowd.

The group shifted, and suddenly, Lydia was face-to-face with the one person she hadn't been prepared to see: Jackson. He was as breathtaking as Derek, yet completely different in every way. His sandy blond hair was spiked perfectly, and his gray-blue eyes cut into her, making her feel he was tearing an image of her into his head instead of admiring. She instantly felt exposed and vulnerable as she always did around him over the past month or more, and she drew herself up defensively. Then, he smiled and she physically relaxed, her arm which was still wrapped through Derek's going limp and falling to her side.

"Jackson," she whispered, her voice more listless than she'd intended, and she clutched her handbag as he moved closer. His gaze cut over to Derek, and he sneered at him in his over-privileged way, eyeing the other male like a peacock with his feathers ruffled.

"You came here with him?" he asked, stressing the 'him' as if it was a disease. Instantly, she felt affronted and stared icily at him. "What does it matter to you who I come to Prom with? Derek asked me, and I said yes." Derek crossed his hands over his waist and stood watching Jackson blankly, so nonchalant and calm he was like an island of ease in the middle of her tempestuous confrontation.

Jackson laughed at her, that biting laugh that got under her skin and made her feel like a child, a patronizing sound. "He's the only option you had?" he asked meanly, his eyes filling with false-pity as he looked back at her. "How pathetic."

Her anger rankled and her jaw set firmly as her body tensed with rage. "I could have gone with any boy in this school if I wanted," she snapped, "But none of them seemed..." she ran her eyes up and down the length of him as if appraising a horse for sale for a worthy quality, "...adequate."

Sniffing scornfully, she turned on her heel and marched away, leaving them both as she disappeared into the crowd. Now she felt the need to clear her head before she bit someone's head off in anger. It was all too much: Derek overwhelming her with his undiscovered handsomeness, Jackson ridiculing her on the very night she'd intended on saving his life. She suddenly found herself wanting this night to be over badly, the night she'd planned for most of her high school career up until this point.

Leaning over on the voting table where people submitted their votes for Prom royalty, she took deep breaths and tried to calm her nerves. She was Lydia Martin. She could handle this and much more.

"Are you alright?" asked a familiar voice behind her. Standing, she turned to face Stiles with a pleasant smile on her face. "I'm fine."

Her sweet Stiles smiled innocently at her, his hands shoved into his pockets and his tuxedo jacket forgotten on the back of some chair somewhere more than likely. He glanced back and forth between her and the dance floor, and she instantly read the look as his desire to ask her to dance. Reacting out of a need to get her mind back into the dance and off of Jackson and his rude behavior, she reached out and grabbed Stiles's hand, dragging him toward the floor.

"Come on, I'll prove it to you," she piped, pulling an exuberant Stiles along after her. The song was up-tempo and they danced easily to it, her spinning around in a giggly circle as Stiles guffawed and generally had himself a wonderful time. When the music slowed, he moved as if to leave, but she held him and forced him to stay, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer. She felt so safe with Stiles, and although she knew it wasn't fair for her to take advantage of his friendship when he clearly wanted more, she needed him as her friend right now. With the turbulence of Derek and Jackson and Peter, Stiles's presence refreshed her with its uniqueness. He had little to no idea about her plan with Derek, and his ignorance made him welcome company.

"You look beautiful tonight," he whispered breathily next to her ear as the music grew quieter and he pulled her close to him. Her heart constricted guiltily, knowing he was getting the wrong impression with her wanting to be with him. Pulling back from him slightly, putting some distance between them, she smiled politely up at him.

"Thank you for dancing with me," she replied simply, changing the subject in an attempt to lead his mind away from her and somewhere else.

"Anything for you, Lydia. You know that," he responded, his doe eyes wide and bewitched by her nearness.

"You're a good friend, Stiles," she commended, "You will always be a good friend."

The words seemed to sink in this time, and his gaze hardened as did his arms around her back. He knew he could never be more than a friend to her then, she felt it in the stiffness of his body. Hurt flashed across his eyes, but he was too much of a gentleman to blame her for it. Besides, she imagined he didn't even know she knew he was so in love with her. She watched him, seeing his heart breaking and feeling her own shrivel painfully at his agony. Not realizing just how infatuated he was with her, it hurt her more than she expected when his arms dropped and he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"I, um... need to find Scott... make sure he's ready," he excused himself, leaving her on the dance floor with her mouth open to apologize a moment too late.


	9. Chapter 9

**I haven't said it yet, so I wanted to make sure I thank all of my followers! I know there are more of you following the story than there are reviews for it, so I want to make sure all of you know how much I appreciate your support! I love you guys!**

**Also, a NOTE: Now that 211 has aired and Peter revealed the 'real' way to save Jackson, just keep ignoring that for the sake of this story. I had him come in (as I'd actually planned all along, and just didn't get Wolfsbane updated before the epi) and explain to Derek that Jackson needs to be saved by "love" for a specific reason that works into the overall direction the story is headed in. Just felt the need to remind everyone of the AU part of this whole thing. hee hee Okay, carry on.**

* * *

Unsettled by how she'd managed to ostracize Stiles as well, Lydia sulked in a chair at one of the many tables left empty as teenagers moved onto the dance floor with their dates. Not caring that she was alone - since she'd thoroughly ruined every interaction she'd had with people so far tonight - she ran her finger around the rim of the glass of water sitting in front of her and tried to think about nothing.

Her attempts were useless.

All she could think about was the plan to save Jackson - to essentially spew all of his family history at him in hopes it would trigger his humanity and break his curse - and how sufficiently she was ruining everything. Jackson was still being a complete jerk to her, yet she felt so confused by her lingering feelings for him she didn't know how to conduct herself. She didn't want to be in love with him, with an asshole, but she knew she still was.

"You can't stop a feeling..." she murmured morosely under her breath, taking a swig of the water.

* * *

Exhaling audibly, Derek exited the restroom and headed toward the windows which offered a view across a park built behind the hotel. Lights twinkled over the park, sparkling on the water in the pond in the middle, over which stretched a luxuriously simple bridge. Couples wandered around in the darkness - he could see them with his night vision although a human would only see moving shapes - and he felt his black heart clench in his chest.

The past several weeks with Lydia had been confusing and irritating. She aggravated him, knew how to pick at him until she had him on edge, and he knew she enjoyed it. He didn't believe she was vindictive - although the seed was there if she ever felt like pushing it - but she was entertained by making him break down the defenses he'd built over his personality. Lydia Martin was an expert at softening him up, and he both hated and respected her for it. He fought so hard for no one to break through those walls, and somehow the tiny redhead had managed to do so in a month. It amazed him really.

But the only reason they were even acquaintances was because she owed him after almost getting him killed, and they were working together to save her boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, he didn't even know what Jackson was to her. Jackson was a snake and didn't deserve the affection of a girl like Lydia, but he knew he could never be the one to tell her that. She would have to come to that realization on her own.

Sighing a rough, growling sort of sigh, he pushed his jacket aside and planted his hands on his hips in agitation. Lydia had gotten under his skin, gotten into his mind somehow, and it irked him. The fact that she looked absolutely breathtaking tonight didn't make matters any worse. He was a man, and he was a werewolf, and those two things clashed into one big clusterfuck of testosterone. The baser side of his personality wondered what her lips would feel like against his, what her skin would feel like beneath his fingers. He wondered what other parts of her felt like as well, but he kept those musings far beneath the surface and didn't admit them even to himself. He chalked it up as merely being male and being attracted to every woman, not Lydia in particular. At least that convinced him for the time-being.

"I do believe I've never seen you in a tuxedo before, nephew," a familiar voice spoke behind him, instantly putting him on edge. Shifting his weight, he saw the reflection of his uncle in the door he faced, a small smirk on his face. Clenching his teeth, Derek turned slowly to face Peter, glaring hotly at him.

"I never thought I'd see you alive again," he hissed, "I guess we're even." Forcing himself to remain under control, he felt his body temperature rising, and he fought the urge to wolf out on his uncle. Now was not the time, and this was certainly not the place.

Peter chuckled heartily at the affront, not rankled in the least by the comment. Instead, his blue eyes regarded Derek merrily, making him want to tear the older werewolf's throat out.

"I imagined you would be more appreciative of what I've done to help your little endeavor," Peter stated, feigning dismay. Gesturing around the hotel as Derek's brow drew down in confusion, Peter smiled benignly. "The anonymous donation? Yes, that was me. I assumed a hotel was a much safer - and nicer - location for Lydia's little plan to save Jackson. It seems likely that even Gerard wouldn't be bold enough to set his kanima loose in such a public place. But I've been wrong before."

Peter shrugged nonchalantly and stepped over to the staircase which spilled out onto this level not far from the door where Derek stood. Feeling his anger abate as his curiosity about Peter's arrival began to overwhelm him, Derek shifted his weight and drew himself up, an imposing figure who stood almost a foot taller than the other werewolf.

"No need to get your feathers ruffled, Derek," Peter chided him, crossing his feet at the ankles, his calm demeanor pestering Derek. "I'm only here to support Lydia's plan, even if I don't think it's going to work..." He examined his fingernails casually as Derek stared at him in confusion.

"Not going to work... what are you talking about?"

Peter snorted and smiled, "Tossing Jackson's family history in his face isn't going to turn him into a werewolf. I imagine you don't believe it either, but you have no other ideas, so you're going along with the plan. How obedient."

Derek's teeth ground together so hard the sound was audible, and Peter's eyes widened in affected surprise. "Touchy subject? I apologize, but what we need to focus on is the real way to save Jackson."

"And how's that?" Derek asked sardonically.

"Love, of course."

Snorting, Derek smiled darkly at his uncle and shook his head. "Jackson doesn't love anyone but himself. He's a selfish little prick."

Peter clicked his tongue chidingly. "That's not true, and you know it. There is one girl who managed to breach the surface of what is Jackson..."

Derek's blue eyes went hard as he realized Peter was right. He knew exactly who that girl was, and he found himself unwilling to admit as much. He felt almost... jealous? No. He wasn't jealous. He was Derek Hale, and he wasn't obedient to such petty emotions as jealousy.

"Lydia..." he stated, his voice sounding much more wistful than he'd intended. Peter smiled at her name.

"Ah, yes. Dear Lydia. She is the key."

* * *

Finally bored by sitting alone, Lydia stood, turning to walk back toward the people on the dance floor as she reapplied her lip gloss. Her breath caught in her throat as she almost ran directly into Jackson. His head lilted to the side animalistically, like a predator sizing up his prey, and his gray-blue eyes shifted, turning reptilian and glowing bright yellow. Her mouth dropped open to scream or to say his name, to say anything at all really, but she couldn't form words. Her throat dried out and she dropped her lip gloss as her hand went limp from fear.

Scales began spreading over his attractive face, and her chest rose rapidly in fearful gulps of air. Reaching toward her, his clawed hand gripped her wrist and wrenched her arm around, spinning her so her arm was pinned behind her back as he forcibly shoved her away from the safety of the crowd and toward the server's hallways running the full length of the room.

* * *

"Only her love for Jackson can save him, or, in essence, his love for her. It always come down to the love of a woman, doesn't it, nephew?"

Derek dropped his gaze from his uncle and ran the words over and over in his head. Lydia was prepared to follow through with their plan to recite Jackson's history to him - now it sounded like such a silly idea in light of Peter's revelation - and it was going to get her nowhere but in trouble. Over the past several weeks, he'd found himself feeling protective over her as if she were a part of his pack. The idea of her being in danger piqued him, and his fists clenched at his sides. Yet, he was torn due to the fact that he had unintentionally allowed himself to become attracted to her. The thought of her loving Jackson was like a rogue itch, one that he couldn't scratch that only managed to piss him off. It was something he couldn't ignore, something he couldn't stop, and it infuriated him more than he liked. He didn't want to care about some human girl with all of the other troubles he had on his plate with the Argents and his resurrected uncle.

Finally, he looked up at his uncle and saw a smirk of satisfaction his face. He knew instantly that Peter sensed his growing affection for Lydia, and it entertained him. Surely, Peter saw it as a weakness he could exploit, and the thought rankled Derek.

"I have to find Lydia," Derek stated simply, brushing past his uncle to find the feisty little redhead.

When he was gone, Peter smiled to himself, "You do that..." Turning, he walked out the doors and into the night and was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

**Warning: There is a bit of blood toward the end of this chapter. Just be forewarned. :)**

* * *

Stumbling down the hallway in her black satin heels, Lydia felt her pulse racing. She wonderedif her arm was broken but doubted it simply because she wasn't crippled by the pain. She'd broken her ankle once as a child, and the pain had consumed her leg until she felt it would spontaneously combust. While her arm hurt from being twisted backwards, it didn't hurt like she remembered.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, running her make-up, as Jackson pushed her through the server's hallways with a cruel velocity she could hardly keep up with. Thankfully, for the sake of her balance, he was partly carrying her as he shoved her along, so she didn't fall and break a leg. The dead, florescent light of the hallway filled her with a deep dread as they reached a door at the end of the section and shoved through it.

Jackson shoved her away from him, and she tripped, falling to her hands and knees on the floor. Shaking her arm as the blood rushed back into it making it sting as the nerves came back to life, she began shaking and pushed herself over to look back at him. Instead of Jackson, there stood the reptilian beast that had attacked her in the locker room. It hissed at her, its sharp teeth dripping with saliva, and her throat constricted.

"Jackson..." she whispered, scooting away from the kanima across the floor. Its tail flicked into the air, whipping gracefully over its back as it lowered onto all fours and stalked her, driving her into the corner of the dead end room filled with metal trays and empty stoves: some sort of abandoned kitchen. Apparently the kitchen was only used with large parties which needed catering to, and it had been cleaned and abandoned for tonight. Frantically looking around for something - anything - to defend herself, Lydia crawled backward on her hands as she searched. The kanima hissed at her again, not attacking her for some reason.

"Lydia Martin." The voice was vaguely familiar and surprised her enough to make her halt in her crawl and look across the room at its source. Allison's grandfather stood calmly along the far wall, his hands crossed over his waist, the fingers of his right hand flipping the small case he carried with him at all times over each of his fingers and back again. "How nice of you to join us."

Realizing the kanima wouldn't attack her until his master ordered him to do so, she felt it was safe to stand, and she pushed herself up, holding onto one of the metal carts for support. She was thoroughly trapped until Gerard decided to either kill her or got what he wanted out of her and possibly released her. She doubted the latter, figuring he would just kill her even if he got what he wanted, but she tried to hold on to a thread of hope she may live through the night.

"It has recently come to my attention that Peter Hale is not quite as dead as we'd believed," Gerard continued, moving from the wall and standing by the kanima who reacted like an obedient dog and wrapped his long, reptilian tail around the old man's legs and leaned against him even as he continued glaring tigerishly at Lydia. Finding her confidence, she stood up straighter and maintained eye contact with him as she responded.

"It's true."

"And you seem to have a unique connection with him," he pointed out, smiling slightly, a smile that didn't warm the room at all through its menace. Lydia didn't answer - it was a touchy subject for her since she hated how Peter continued to use her now that he was alive once again - but merely watched the old hunter with wary eyes.

"You're going to tell me what he's up to, girly," Gerard commanded, the kanima hissing at his feet. She glanced from Gerard to the kanima warily, and swallowed heavily.

"I... don't know what you mean," she lied, her voice shaking and betraying her at the worst moment.

Gerard smiled knowingly and dropped his free hand to rest tranquilly on the kanima's head. "I do believe you're lying. I despise lying, Miss Martin."

Before she could react, the kanima moved so quickly he knocked the air out of her as her back hit the wall behind her. Its claws wrapped fully around her throat, pinning her in place even as she kicked her feet to get away. Her efforts were fruitless against the creature that wouldn't even die from several gunshot wounds. Her hands clasped onto the creature's wrists, trying to give herself more room to breathe, but it was no use. She was trapped.

* * *

Derek pushed through the teenagers meandering out of the dance and entered the dark ballroom where he'd left Lydia. His night vision aided him as he scanned the room, not seeing her in the crowd of young adults. Frowning, he recognized Stiles and Scott across the room and moved toward them with inhuman speed.

"Have you seen Lydia?" he asked them, catching their attention as he arrived so suddenly.

"I saw her about an hour ago. We danced..." Stiles answered, his tone flat, betraying the hurt he'd endured over Lydia admitting he would never be more than her friend.

"An hour ago?" Derek asked, exasperatedly. Stiles nodded and Scott shrugged in agreement. He had obviously been mooning over Allison all night, and Derek had no time for their teenage Romeo and Juliet drama. "What about Jackson?"

"Last I saw him, he was headed toward the back of the ballroom toward that table..." Scott pointed toward the notably-empty tables, "...right there."

A warning pinged in Derek's mind. Lydia was nowhere to be found, and Jackson had noticeably disappeared. The plan was falling apart. Lydia could already be dead.

"Damn," he cursed, beginning to move in the direction Scott had pointed.

"What's wrong?" Stiles asked, his concern for the girl he still loved rising as he sensed something off about the situation. Derek shook his head, his jaw clenching as he stalked in the direction of the tables, pushing through teenagers who were drunk from the spiked punch and hormonal overload.

"Lydia... the plan..." he growled as he emerged from the crowd, followed closely by Stiles like a nervous puppy.

"The plan to save Jackson?" Stiles asked anxiously. Derek nodded vehemently and drew in a deep breath, shaking his head in disgust as the scent of the kanima filled his sensitive nostrils.

"It's not going to work," he answered simply, following the scent as best he could now that it had faded. They must have been gone for twenty or thirty minutes at least. So much time... Lydia could already be dead, and someone else could be next. More casualties until Gerard got what he wanted.

"What do you mean 'it's not going to work'? You mean, Lydia's in danger?" Stiles asked, his voice raising tensely as he jogged to keep up with Derek.

"Stay here, Stiles!" Derek commanded, the teenager stopping in his tracks immediately. "Keep an eye on the dance and make sure no one gets hurt. I'll find Lydia..." His words trailed off, leaving unsaid the fear he felt that he may already be too late. At that, he turned and raced into the waiters' hallways and left Stiles behind.

* * *

"Let's try this again. What does Peter want?" Gerard demanded, flipping the small metal case around in his fingers as if they were old friends having tea and he didn't have a pet snake holding her life in his hands.

Struggling against the painful hold Jackson had around her neck, she grimaced as the kanima's claws dug into the skin at the back of her neck. Anyone else would already be paralyzed, but she was as immune to the kanima's venom as she was to Peter's bite, and she merely felt the pain from the wound. The claws pierced her skin, drawing blood, and she whimpered as she felt the heat of her own blood wetting the hair at the base of her skull.

"I told you, I don't know!" she exclaimed forcibly.

"Jackson..." she said, forcing herself to look into the kanima's menacing eyes, remembering her ex-boyfriend was in there somewhere. "I know it's you. I know you see me. I know you don't want to kill me."

"Oh, but he does want to kill you, sweetheart," Gerard purred with a deadly smile. "He wants to kill you if I want to kill you. He's only holding back because I need you alive... for now."

Tears ran out of her eyes, and she steeled herself against those reptilian eyes as she stared at him. "Jackson... you're the son of Gordon and Margaret Miller..." The pain at the back of her neck was so much her words stuttered even as she tried to continue. Sensing what she was attempting, Gerard mentally commanded the kanima to tighten his grip, and suddenly, she could hardly breathe as her throat began to be crushed by the creature. Kicking wildly, clawing at the scaly paw that held her helpless against the wall, she cried and tried to scream but no sound could leave her throat.

"Now, now, Lydia," Gerard scolded calmly. "It's not that easy. Jackson already knows all of that, you see. You think by telling him about his parents, that will save him?" He tsk-ed gently and shook his head, a wry smile crossing his evil face. "Such a foolish little girl. Jackson is mine as long as I want him. He does what I want him to do, and that is how it will always be."

The kanima hissed menacingly and snapped his teeth at her. The grip around her throat loosened just enough for her to get a good breath, but her esophagus burned from the pain and she couldn't speak. Her plan was failing, and Gerard had confirmed it wouldn't save Jackson. She felt hopeless as she stared into those fathomless, evil eyes and realized she was going to die.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash, and a man burst into the room, metal carts rolling wildly away from the door he'd broken through and colliding with the walls and stoves in a cacophony of metallic screeching. The kanima hissed in irritation but never loosened his grip as Gerard spun around to face the intruder.

Derek shook himself and took in the scene - Lydia pinned helplessly to the wall, the kanima holding her there, and Gerard: the puppet master - and anger washed over him in a mighty wave. Roaring, his eyes turned red and his fangs grew instantly as the red hot rage swept through his veins. Leaping for Gerard, he missed as the crafty old man dodged him and ran for the door. Derek turned to lunge after him but came up short as he heard Lydia scream behind him, his focus shot by that one sound. Turning, he saw her on the floor, the kanima hovering over her with his deadly tail against her throat, his claws perched on her chest over her heart.

"No, please no!" she screamed, her heart beating so fast she could hear it in her ears. Her hands remained free, and instead of swinging and trying to battle the monster off of her, she did the only other thing she could think of.

Reaching up, she gripped the creature's face and braced herself, pulling herself up and kissing it on its scaly mouth. The action surprised the beast, its green eyes widening as the human kissed it. With her eyes closed, Lydia saw none of this, but did her best to imagine she was kissing something other than a monstrous reptile. Derek halted in surprise, his black heart leaping to his throat in a strange, painful pang. The danger tremored around the room like an earthquake, and he was frozen as Lydia kissed the kanima, her petite hands cupping the creature's scaled face and her soft lips pressed against its mouth.

When she needed a breath, she fell back away from the kanima, realizing what she'd imagined to help her survive the kiss. The realization made her eyes snap open, and she was surprised when it wasn't the scaled face of a killer beast, but Jackson staring down at her, his gray-blue eyes widened in shock and fear. Her heart leapt in triumph as he frantically looked down at her and then scrambled off of her, his eyes darting around the room. His clothes had somehow magically remained on him, although they were torn and tattered now.

Feeling the blood running down the back of her neck, and realizing there was a new pain in her stomach, Lydia tried to move but found she was spent. Jackson scrambled against the wall, and Derek grabbed him, slamming him against the tile furiously.

"Derek! I... what did I do?" Jackson asked wildly, comprehension dawning in his eyes.

"You remember?" Derek asked him, his claws tearing into Jackson's shirt as he held him firmly against the wall.

"I... Lydia..." he glanced toward her, but Derek forced him to look into his face and continue. "I killed... all those people..."

He remembered. She had done it. Lydia had saved him, but at what price? She lay bloodied on the floor, with worse injuries than she knew. And at what price to Derek? To his heart? Peter was right: love was the only way to save the kanima. The news hit Derek harder than he wished, and he angrily released Jackson, tossing him toward the open door to the room.

"Get out of here before the cops show up," Derek ordered angrily, "I'll deal with you, and that old man, later." Looking down at Lydia with a nauseous look on his face, Jackson seemed about to protest, but, at Derek's glare, turned and ran away down the hallway.

Turning to Lydia, Derek fell down on his knees and pulled her into his lap. Lydia smiled up at him, the pain in her stomach aching and burning so that she didn't bother to lift her arms. All she felt the strength to do was smile.

"We did it, Derek," she stated softly, happily.

"You did it, Lydia," he corrected her, examining the wound in her stomach and realizing Jackson's claws had stabbed her in surprise when she'd kissed him, narrowly missing her heart and puncturing her abdomen instead. Blood stained her green dress, and he noticed the back of her hair was wet with blood as well as her head rested in his lap.

"He's Jackson again," her voice sounded wistful to him, and that pain in his chest replayed itself to his chagrin. "Yes, he's Jackson again."

"Derek..." she started, trying to sit up but wincing and falling back into his lap from the pain of the wound in her stomach.

"Relax, it's done. Jackson is... Jackson again. Now I just have to deal with Gerard."

Gently, he placed his free hand over her belly. His veins glowed red and he winced slightly as Lydia felt the pain of her stab wound fading. It still ached when he removed his hand and sighed tiredly, but she knew it was no longer fatal.

"How did you...?"

He managed a smile, a private smile she somehow knew was reserved for her, and he shrugged. "It's one of the perks of being a- AHHH!"

Derek cried out and bent over her, an arrow piercing his back only inches above his heart. Lydia gasped as he fell over her, his face only inches from her own. Automatically, her hands went to his face, catching him and holding him despite the ache remaining in her own body. Gathering her strength, she shifted her body enough so she could see through the broken doorway, to see a silhouette of Allison holding a bow with another arrow knocked and ready.

"Allison! No!" The pain in her gut was still strong, but she managed to sit up, feeling her own blood leech from the wound Derek hadn't been able to fully heal. "Lydia... don't.." Derek reprimanded her, still bossy even when he was shot with a silver arrow. "Shush," she silenced him, a petite finger touching his lips as she tried to stand.

Although Derek had healed the major part of the wound, he hadn't completely healed her, and she could feel the blood starting to leak out as she strained herself. Allison glared emotionlessly down at the werewolf, ignoring her best friend as Lydia tried to rise.

"Don't get in the way, Lydia. He killed my mother; he's mine."

"Allison, don't do this. You don't understand..."

"I understand perfectly well. He's a murderer. He deserves to die." Heartlessly, Allison pulled back on the arrow and Lydia watched, as if in slow motion, as the arrow left the bow and flew toward Derek.

Derek who had saved her life from the kanima in the locker room at school; Derek who had been working with her the past month to find a way to save Jackson although he disliked the boy. Derek who had just saved her from a fatal wound and taken an arrow because of something he didn't even do.

Summoning what little strength she had, Lydia pushed herself up and over, diving in front of him as the arrow swiftly flew at his heart. As the silver shaft pierced her skin, she saw Allison's eyes widen and her grip on the bow go limp, dropping the weapon as her own arrow stabbed her best friend through the shoulder. Lydia fell to the floor, crying out in pain as she caught herself on her hands and rolled over to her back, grimacing and groaning with the pain.

"Lydia!" Allison and Derek cried simultaneously. Allison ran to her friend, falling to her knees beside her as Derek gripped the arrow in his back and tore it from his skin, blood spraying from the wound and weakness washing over him. Silver. It had to be silver.

Tossing the arrow away across the floor, the werewolf drug himself to Lydia's side, his brow drawing down in worry as her hand tightened around the arrow and she coughed in dry heaves from the pain. Her skin and body was weaker than his, and the arrow had pierced through her shoulder, the head of it sticking out of her back. Her face was pale and she gripped the arrow shaft so tightly her fingers turned white.

"You shot me..." she managed between gasps. Allison had begun crying.

"I'm so sorry, Lydia! I never... I didn't mean..." Allison yammered, almost incoherently.

"She didn't mean to shoot you, she meant to shoot me," Derek stated calmly, gently placing his hand over Lydia's smaller one. Lydia looked up at him, complete trust in her eyes, something that threw him off for a moment. No one trusted him, not Scott, or Stiles, or Allison, or any of them. But he could tell by that one look that Lydia trusted him completely.

"Do it. I know you have to do it, so just do it," she stated firmly, setting her jaw stubbornly. Derek nodded and tore the left sleeve off of his jacket, rolling it and putting it in her mouth, "Bite down on this. And you should probably close your eyes, but that's entirely up to you."

Allison gripped Lydia's hand and cried silently to herself as Lydia bit down on the fabric and shook her head. Instead of closing her eyes, she looked directly into Derek's eyes with a headstrong gaze. Nodding in respect for her wish to have her eyes open, he snapped the head of the arrow off and quickly pulled the shaft out through her arm. She screamed into the fabric and her legs writhed from the pain, but she managed to do it with her eyes open the whole time. Sliding his arm under her back, he sat her up and supported her as he removed his torn jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders to help soak up some of the blood.

"We need to get you to a hospital," he stated even as he felt his own body weaken from the silver that had leeched into his system from the first arrow. "Allison," he spoke the girl's name firmly and bitterly, looking over at her with his ice blue eyes. The brunette looked up at him through tear-stained eyes, her hatred for him lessened by her friend's act of protection over him. "Take her to the hospital now before she loses any more blood."

"What about you," Lydia stated stiffly, stubbornly resisting as Allison tried to guide her out of the room. "That arrow... the silver..."

Derek offered her that private smile, trying to calm her although he was panicking on the inside. "I'll be fine. Silver's not all the myths crack it up to be." He was lying, and he sensed she would be able to tell, but she didn't argue with him. Instead, she allowed Allison to lead her away. Only after they were gone down the hallway did Derek allow himself to sink to the floor tiredly. Silver... It had to be silver... He passed out in a puddle of his and Lydia's blood.


	11. Chapter 11

All she could see was a bright white glare. Her eyes blinked open slowly, the light painful in her head, making her brain feel as if it were on fire. She felt drowsy and tired, but a sense that she needed to remember something important plagued her.

"Lydia..." the voice sounded distant, echoing in her ears. "Lydia." It came again, most insistent but still far away.

"Derek..." she muttered drowsily, slowly turning her head as she tried to focus her eyes, but her head spun dizzily. "Allison... Jackson..." Memories began coming back to her, creeping up and spilling over as she regained consciousness. The kanima about to kill her, his claws stabbing into her stomach, Derek saving her life and taking a silver arrow from Allison's bow in the process, Allison sobbing and apologizing for shooting her best friend who was defending the werewolf she wanted to kill. Gerard escaping...

"Derek," she stated more firmly, the glare beginning to fade as she tried to push herself up. She was in a hospital room, dressed in one of those hideous cotton gowns decorated in pale green flowers that made her sicker than the rest of the situation. Her head spun as she tried to sit up, and a hand gently stopped her, pushing her back in the bed.

"Lydia," came the voice from her daydream, and her eyes focused on the nurse at her bedside. "You're alright. You've been out for a little while. You fainted from blood loss, and we gave you a sleeping pill to put you to sleep while we put in your stitches."

"Twenty-one total!" chirped another nurse, dressed similarly to the first but with grayer hair and strong yet aged hands. "You were a trooper." She smiled a motherly smile that soothed Lydia despite the gnawing knot in her stomach.

"My friends..." she began, but the older nurse shushed her gently.

"Your friends are in the waiting room. We'll tell them it's okay to come in." The older woman nodded with a smile and left with the first nurse to summon the others.

Friends, the nurse had said. But Derek had looked so sick from the silver arrow to his back. Could he possibly be here? Maybe he'd followed them to the hospital, and she'd fainted too soon to see him coming after them. Worry spread in her chest as she pictured his paling face as the arrow stabbed into his back, inches above piercing his heart and surely taking his life. She felt the stubble of his cheeks against her palms as she caught him as he cried out from shock at the attack.

"Lydia!" exclaimed Allison, the other girl's voice breaking her out of her thoughts. Rushing to her bedside, Allison awkwardly touched her arm but withdrew her hand timidly, not knowing how to comfort her friend when she'd been the very one to wound her. "I'm... I'm so sorry, Lydia. I never meant to..."

"What did you tell the doctor?" Lydia asked immediately, her confident tone bringing Allison back to reality instead of blubbering all over her.

"They think we were at Prom and you spilled punch all over your dress because you were upset about your date leaving you. So we left and were shooting arrows at a picture of his face, and one of them went astray and hit you." Allison screwed up her mouth as Lydia began to laugh.

"And they actually believed you?" she asked incredulously, choking back her laughter as pain blossomed in her shoulder.

Allison smiled then, shrugging slightly, her wide mouth screwing up into a meek grin. "They actually did." She giggled then, her tension broken by Lydia's reaction to her cover story. "It wasn't like I could convince them you stabbed yourself with a mascara pen or something."

Lydia chuckled to herself, her laughter dying off as her mind went to the actual events. "Lydia, I'm really sorry."

"I know," she replied flatly. Looking up at her friend, she fixed her with her green eyes as she grew serious. "You meant to shoot Derek. To kill him."

The words hung between them for a moment as Allison broke their gaze and bit her bottom lip uncomfortably.

"You never followed my advice, Allison," Lydia continued, "You never got all of the facts. Or you would know that your grandfather was the one controlling the kanima. Derek saved my life - again - when your grandfather tried to make Jackson kill me." Her voice was devoid of tone as she struggled to keep her composure. Derek had saved her again, another point going to him.

Allison's brown eyes widened incredulously, and she began to shake her head, backing away from the hospital bed slightly. "No... he wouldn't... he hates supernatural creatures. He hunts them. He would never-"

"Well, he did. I have no reason to lie to you. He was there, he ordered Jackson to attack me, and he almost crushed my windpipe. He stabbed me in my stomach, and Derek was the one who took that pain away so I didn't bleed to death right there on the floor."

Self-consciously, her found felt around to the back of her neck, and she felt the dried blood in her hair. Apparently the doctors and nurses had been so focused on her shoulder, they hadn't noticed the scratches on the back of her neck. Thankfully, it had been more painful than serious, and it had already scabbed over and dried.

"Gerard..." Allison muttered, her voice full of emotion, regret. Lydia sighed and closed her eyes, tired from the events of the night. Behind Allison, the door opened and Lydia's heart jumped in her chest. A figure moved into the room, materializing into Jackson, and she felt her heart fall slightly, realizing somewhere in her subconscious that he wasn't the one she'd wanted to see walk through the door.

Allison stepped to the side so he could read the bedside as Lydia watched him with her penetrating green eyes. True remorse marred his features, a look she'd never seen on him before. He didn't look at her as he began speaking, "I just remembered all of those things I did... All of those people I killed..." His eyes squeezed tight and his face soured with the pain of the memories of things he did that were beyond his control. Lydia felt sympathy wash over her, and she felt like crying as she watched him so upset.

"It wasn't me, but I did it. I did horrible things," he whispered, a tear spilling over his eyelid and rolling silently down his face as he finally looked her in the eye. "I almost killed you..." The anguish in his voice broke her heart, and she began to tear up, nodding since she couldn't find her voice to respond.

"Lydia, I'm so sorry..." leaning over, he impulsively kissed her, and without intending to, she got a vivid flashback of kissing the kanima. Its scaly mouth on hers, feeling its sharp teeth beneath those lips, but Jackson's lips were soft and familiar, safe. Naturally, as if falling into a habit, she kissed him back, her eyes closing and one hand raising to touch his stubbly cheek...

Her eyes snapped open suddenly, and she gasped slightly, causing him to pull away from her with worry in his gray-blue eyes. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"No, it's... it's fine," she assured him, offering him a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Allison cleared her throat uncomfortably and smiled awkwardly over Jackson's shoulder from where she'd moved next to the window. "I'm just going to head home. We'll talk later." Her eyes told Lydia she wanted - needed - to talk more about her grandfather, but now wasn't the time. Lydia smiled at her as she waved and departed.

Jackson's hand slid into hers, and he pulled her hand up to his mouth to kiss her fingers. She smiled weakly and gently pulled her hand from his grasp.

"Lydia, I... love you," he managed, looking at her tenderly, so unsure of himself and so unlike the Jackson she'd always known that his behavior threw her off guard. "I need you. You saved me. I would still be that thing without you. Please promise me you won't leave me ever again."

She looked up at him and saw that sadness in his eyes, the sadness of realizing he'd killed so many innocent people, that he'd been a monster. Reaching toward him, she squeezed his hand and smiled reassuringly. Her heart didn't leap as it once had when she'd touched him or kissed him, but she felt she was on familiar ground. This felt safe and habitual, and she'd been so out of sorts lately, it was refreshing to feel like something was normal in her life... Even if it didn't make her heart burn with passion as it once had.

"I won't leave you, Jackson."

* * *

Everything was soft and sweet as if he was floating in a sea of sugar and red hair and green eyes. Smiling to himself, Derek reached for her, saw her floating toward him as his tongue tasted the air, it tasted like chocolate candy. Lydia smiled at him, her strawberry blond hair drifting delicately around her face in a halo, her green eyes glowing as they did when she wore her green Prom dress. Her smile was only for him, and she reached for him, the tips of her soft fingers brushing his rough skin. He reached for her, grabbing for her petite body to pull it close to his, but she drifted away from him, unreachable yet so close.

"Lydia..." he whispered, his voice weaker and quieter than he wanted. He tried to yell her name as she drifted farther away, but he couldn't make his voice any louder, and she only grew farther and farther away. He screamed until his voice was gone completely, and she disappeared into the pale mist, disappearing into the light.

With a gasp, Derek woke up to a bright white light shining in his eyes. Squinting against the painful glare, he tried to get off of the table where he laid, but firm hands pressed on his shoulders, immobilizing him. As his eyes focused, he recognized Doctor Deaton and felt an injection enter his arm with a slight twinge. Frowning, he blinked his eyes and focused on the room, recognizing the inside of the veterinarian's laboratory.

"Easy, easy," the vet cautioned. As he spoke the words, Derek felt his head spin and he lurched over the side of the table, retching on the floor. Falling back on the table, he grimaced apologetically.

"Sorry..." he croaked, to which the doctor merely smiled and shook his head.

"It's only natural. You've got silver poisoning. This is the first time you've been fully awake in a week."

A week. A week had passed since that night at the Prom, since Gerard had tried to kill Lydia and almost succeeded. Since Lydia had kissed Jackson and broken the kanima curse. A week since he'd realized he didn't consider the petite redhead just a necessary ally in his quest to save the people of Beacon Hills from death at the hands of the kanima.

"A week..." he repeated weakly, his head rolling back and forth on the table as he turned to look up at the doctor who'd vowed to his mother to protect him. "Is...everyone..." He couldn't find the right words to ask what he wanted to ask, so he trailed off impotently.

"Jackson is back to his usual self, at least a bit repentant, it seems," the doctor explained slowly, his words dragging out too slowly for Derek's taste. "And Lydia was released from the hospital today."

Relief spread over him quicker than he'd imagined, and he felt lightheaded. "Lay back now. You, on the other hand, are not fully healed."

As he lay down on the table, Derek furrowed his brow and examined the vet's face. "You said it was silver poisoning?" He remembered vividly, Allison's arrow stabbing into his back, almost piercing his heart but missing by those precious inches that saved his life.

The veterinarian nodded as he swabbed the injection point and threw away the old needle. "The arrow you were shot with was silver, as well you know, and it just missed your heart. Fortunately, the silver didn't get into your bloodstream, or you would be dead. Unfortunately, all werewolves are allergic to silver and it weakens your healing properties. So, it's as if you've had the flu for a week, and you're just beginning to heal."

"So you've been feeding me chicken soup through an iv?" Derek asked, half-joking in his still-sick state. The doctor snorted silently and smiled, gently patting Derek's shoulder as he turned to retrieve an iv bag filled with clear fluids, plugging it into the port on the werewolf's arm.

"You'll be healed soon, but until then, you need to take it easy. Doctor's orders," Deason chided with an easygoing smile. "No more stress than necessary."

* * *

Two days later, Derek sat in silence in the abandoned train warehouse that had become his home after Peter's - temporary - death. Flipping absently through a history book, one of the many Lydia had used in her research into Jackson's family history, he slammed the book closed and tossed it away in irritation. He was restless and irritable, easily perturbed. Isaac and Boyd had gotten into a wrestling match earlier that day that had managed to tip over one of the derelict train cars, and Derek had railed on them until they both scurried away, claiming they had homework so they could escape him. Erica had attempted to cheer him up by flirting with him in her usual manner, but he'd turned her away with a snort, telling her to go chase after Stiles and to leave him alone.

In short, he was pissy.

The metal door to the warehouse clanging shut caught his ear, and he rose smoothly from his seat, his senses heightened as he realized he wasn't alone.

Lydia cringed as the door slammed shut behind her, memories of her first adventure to this same warehouse coming back to her as she walked across the dirt-covered floor with her arms wrapped around herself. The air in the warehouse was cooler than outside - to suit the warm-blooded werewolves who lived within - and it chilled her. She didn't know why she was here, other than the simple fact she couldn't stand not knowing how he was. She knew he was alive since Scott had told her as much, but she had to see him. She had to see for herself that he was okay.

Derek stepped out of the bus where he spent much of his time, and her throat constricted. Swallowing heavily, she forced her heart rate to slow down so as not to give herself away. His jaw was set and his skin seemed paler than usual, but other than that, he was back to his usual grouchy self. Unable to resist, she smiled and her arms fell to her sides, her hands tapping a random rhythm on her hips.

"You're okay," she stated obviously, biting her lower lip and feeling so much relief to see him standing and breathing that she could hardly contain herself.

"So are you," he replied, his hard look softening as he leaned against the doorway to the bus and watched her approach him.

"I wanted to thank you," she continued, glancing around the warehouse before finding her eyes drifting back to him, "For saving my life. And for helping me save Jackson."

His jaw twitched, tightening, at the last sentence but he didn't comment. Instead, he nodded and looked away from her into the dark shadows on the edges of the warehouse. Lydia took a deep breath and swung back and forth from her toes to her heels and back again, her arms swinging gently at her sides.

"Allison won't be a problem anymore," she added, "She knows the truth about Gerard."

Derek snorted soundlessly and nodded his head, his arms crossed over his chest as he fumed silently. Frowning, Lydia took a step closer to him, annoyed by him ignoring her. She missed the playful side of him she'd seen as they worked together to solve the mystery of the kanima curse. She hated seeing him so stoic, especially to her. Before she could touch him, his gaze swiveled and locked on her, drawing her up short. His ice blue eyes cut into her, freezing her in place and making her heart beat too fast.

"Why are you still here, Lydia?" he asked harshly, his arms uncrossing as he took one step closer to her, closing the gap between them by one more foot.

Her mouth dropped open to answer, but she realized she had no reason. She'd only wanted to make sure he was okay, had needed to see he was okay. Other than that, she couldn't admit to having a better excuse. The tension between them swelled into a palpable thing in that moment, and she self-consciously tucked a curl of her strawberry blond hair behind her ear as she searched for a justification to her actions. She would excuse it away as trying to carry out Peter's plan, but she knew that wasn't true. The thought of the plan turned her stomach - the thought of betraying Derek in such a way - and she stopped rocking on her toes, her green eyes widening as she stared hopelessly back into those ice blue eyes.

She couldn't feel this way about him. It would only hurt him. Just like she would only hurt Stiles, she could only hurt Derek if she allowed her head and her heart to keep playing these tricks on her. If he fell in love with her, if he ever even started feeling anything for her, Peter would make her kill him. It may not be tomorrow or even next year, but eventually, he would command her to do it, and how would she resist? Perhaps he could even possess her again somehow, or kill her parents, or something far worse she couldn't even imagine. One way or another, his plan would be successful.

She couldn't let that happen.

Derek took another step toward her, and her heart sped up once more. She imagined the feel of his rough skin against hers, his stubbly face in her hands as he'd fallen over her when Allison's arrow pierced his back. The distance between them now was only a foot, and they could easily touch one another now. She found herself drawn toward him like a magnet, and her feet shifted forward without her permission. Her doe eyes stared up at him, her heart palpitating wildly in her chest and betraying her worse than anything she could say.

His hand reached out and brushed back her hair, cupping her face as he looked into her eyes with so much desire her knees went weak. "Why are you still here?" he asked again, his voice growing husky as he gently ran his fingers down her jawline. Trembling at his touch, she swallowed heavily and sucked a breath in between her lips, her mouth opening slightly in invitation despite her better judgement.

"I..." she began, her words draining away as he closed the space between them and his hard chest brushed her, her hand instinctively moving to his side, her eyes dropping from his to see his strong arms as his other hand moved to cup the other side of her face. He gently pulled her gaze upward so she was looking into those abyssal blue eyes, and she felt so weak she thought she might faint. He began leaning over, began kissing her, and her body ached to feel the touch of his lips on hers. As his eyes closed in preparation for the kiss, she felt herself leaning toward him, begging him to do it, thirsting to feel his mouth.

"I'm with Jackson," she blurted out suddenly, stopping him cold in place. His blue eyes snapped open and he released her so vehemently she almost stumbled backward. His body went rigged as he stepped away from her, and the instant chill between them hit her like a tsunami of ice. Her shoulders slumped visibly from the sudden change, freezing her desire for him so quickly it made her reel. Those blue eyes that had just been burning with want, burning with need to kiss her, were now ice cold, glaring daggers into her before he turned and stepped into the broken down bus.

"Good for you, Lydia." It was all he said before the bus rocked and he disappeared, the roaring howl of his alpha form reverberating in the warehouse and almost deafening her as he leapt into the shadows and melted away.


	12. Chapter 12

Her mind was elsewhere as Lydia entered school Monday morning. There was too much going on in her head to pinpoint one particular thought, and she felt jostled and confused. Her brain hurt from too much reasoning, and she frowned to herself as she walked to her locker and opened it. The inside was cluttered with pictures of her and her friends, most notably the several images of her and Jackson (one at the bowling alley with Scott and Allison, another in the hallways here at school, and others). Closing her eyes, she sighed heavily and shook her head, opening her eyes to gather the books she needed for her first few classes.

When she slammed her locker shut, she gasped in surprise, jumping slightly, as Jackson's face was right behind the door.

"Did I scare you?" he asked with a grin, grabbing her hips and turning her so her back was against the lockers. She smiled slightly and shrugged, melding back into the person she was with him like it was her job. Always blending in, never standing out or showing how intelligent and strong she really was.

"Just frightened me a little," she admitted. He leaned toward her to kiss her, and her hands went to his shoulders, almost bracing herself as he planted the kiss on her lips. As he pulled away, she sighed a bit, loud enough that he heard it. He frowned slightly at her and smiled, his jovial attitude untarnished despite her reaction.

"Is everything alright?"

Her eyebrows raising, she offered him her sweetest smile and shook her head, her red curls bouncing around her face. "Oh no, I'm fine."

"Good," he commented, releasing her hips and taking her hand to walk with her to her next class. She followed obediently along after him, this routine as familiar to her as brushing her teeth before bedtime. Jackson was happy today, brighter than he'd been in a long time, and she was genuinely glad. But she couldn't deny the gnawing hole in her chest when she looked at him. Still, she had to refuse herself. She couldn't give in to the daydreams she'd been having, and she would stay with Jackson. He was her safety net, and he needed her right now as he recovered from the curse.

Glancing around as they walked to class, her heart leapt anxiously when she caught a brief glimpse of a black trench coat disappearing down one of the hallways. Foreboding rose in her, and she lagged slightly behind Jackson, holding up the traffic in the hallway and getting cursed at by a few students on their way to class. Jackson stopped and frowned questioningly at her, squeezing her hand to remind her to follow. She smiled apologetically at him and continued walking, shaking her head slightly and telling herself the sight had only been her imagination.

Passing the next hallway, she saw it again, only this time it was Peter standing in the middle of the students as if he was visible only to her as they milled around him. He smiled briefly, and then heads passed between them, and she lost sight of him. She dropped Jackson's hand so suddenly he stopped again, raising his eyebrows and gesturing to her, impatiently motioning her to keep up.

"Um... go on without me," she commented distantly, looking at him just long enough to smile slightly to tell him nothing was wrong. "I'll catch up."

Shrugging, he turned and moved off with the rest of the crowd. When Jackson was gone, she darted down the hallway and into the nearest girls' room. Leaning over on one of the sinks to steady herself, she forced herself to take deep breaths. She was only imagining things. Peter wouldn't be here. He wouldn't follow her to school. She was only hallucinating or daydreaming or something.

Behind her, one of the stalls swung open to reveal the very mirage she'd witnessed, and she gripped the sink so hard she would've broken it if she was stronger. Dashing away from him, she ran for the door, but he was too fast for her, grabbing her, locking the door, and pulling her back into the room. He released her, and she was surprised to see him smiling as she turned to face him.

"Good job curing Jackson of the kanima curse, my dear," Peter commended, his sweet tone underlined with poison. "I've always known you were a smart girl. And the kiss! What a wonderful touch. I couldn't have come up with a better idea myself.

My nephew wasn't too pleased about it though, I would imagine."

Without her permission, her heart jumped excitedly in her chest, and she frowned at Peter. He merely stared back at her with that benign smile on his face.

"I won't do what you want me to do," she stated firmly, sounding much stronger than she felt. "I'm with Jackson, and I'm happy." It was a lie, and she knew it.

"But you already have without intending to," he replied casually, his hand going to his pocket and retrieving a purple wolfsbane bloom. She pressed her lips together firmly as he spun the tiny flower between two fingers and his thumb, smiling to himself. "It's the things we accomplish without ever trying that are the most effective, don't you think?"

She sucked in a gulp of air and released it in a huff, her shoulders rising and falling with the action. His words needled her because she knew, deep in her subconscious where she'd been hiding the thought, that he was right. She'd seen it in Derek's eyes before, but especially the night she'd visited him to check on him. He was in love with her despite her best efforts to keep him at arm's distance. But had she really been trying that hard? Hadn't she allowed him through her defenses just as he'd allowed her through his?

"Resisting only makes us want something more," Peter continued, stepping closer to her and holding the flower toward her, "We want most what we can't have."

She wanted to cry. His words cut her to the heart. She'd thrown herself into saving Jackson so she could ignore the chemistry she felt with Derek, and to ignore the task Peter wanted her to accomplish. But that spark had only grown inside of her instead of being extinguished. Ignoring how openly desirous of him she'd been the other night would only be foolish, but she couldn't do what Peter demanded. It would lead to Derek ultimately being killed, and caring about someone - loving them - meant protecting them, not leading them to their death.

Peter was close to her now, the scent of the wolfsbane wafting into her nose as he leaned toward her and his voice lowered until he was almost whispering.

"You will do as I ask, Lydia," he murmured, his eyes flashing dangerously, "Not because I could easily kill your entire family and your friends, but because to not do so would mean you would never get to experience that which is right at your fingertips."

The flower twirled in his fingers, drawing her eyes to his fingers in a symbolic motion, and she swallowed heavily, closing her eyes for a moment.

"You hunger to know what it feels like. You thirst to experience the kind of love you feel for him, deep down inside." His finger gently jabbed her chest, and she lurched with each jab as if he were stabbing her. The words tore into her soul, tearing at her heart with their truth. Her fists clenched as she glared up at the alpha impotently. She couldn't resist. She had already imagined Derek kissing her when he'd been about to and she'd stopped him by blurting out she was dating Jackson. She'd known it would stop him, knew he was jealous when she'd kissed the kanima to break the curse.

"No matter how badly you fight it, you already love him, Lydia. You're just hiding in your safety net: Jackson. He's safe, he's normal, he's routine. You can handle him even if there is no passion there anymore, and the passion you feel when you see my nephew is more than you can handle: more than you want to handle."

She closed her eyes, pressing her lips together and clenching her fists tighter as tears welled into her eyes. The soft petals of the flower caressed her cheek as Peter ran it down her skin, and she tried to turn her face away but couldn't. One tear spilled over onto her cheek, and he dried it with the flower, his presence exacerbating her fear and reminding her that every word out of his mouth tore open the naked truth in her soul.

"So, yes, Lydia, you will do what I want," he finished with a purr, "Because you can't live without knowing, my little wolfsbane."

She heard the bathroom door open and close behind her, and her eyes popped open to see she was alone. On the sink next to her lay the flower, wet with her tears.


	13. Chapter 13

**Beware: Mature content ahead...finally. )**

* * *

Lydia ran until she entered the dark, empty warehouse and lurched against the entryway, throwing open the doors to reveal the dirty, deserted train depot she'd become so familiar with. On the verge of hyperventilating, she trudged forward, purposefully stomping toward Derek's favorite lounging place. She knew he'd heard every move she'd made from the moment she'd pushed open the doors, and probably before that considering how loudly her heart was beating from running, but he'd refused to greet her as he usually did. He was probably still miffed about what had almost-happened between them the other night, but she didn't care.

Frantic and fuming over Peter's words, she climbed into the abandoned bus but saw him nowhere. Growling in irritation, she jumped down the steps and landed in the dirt, looking around for him somewhere. Perhaps he was gone, and he was safe from her. Maybe she hadn't needed to come here after all. Maybe he didn't feel anything about her, and Peter was wrong. A mild shred of hope that he would stay away from her sprang up, instantly followed by a stronger punch of pain at the thought she may never see him again. But if it meant he survived, wouldn't it be worth it?

Rubbing her hands together nervously, she explored toward the back of the warehouse, into a section she'd never entered. The shadows fell over her, the darkness caressing her and cooling her feverish skin. As she walked, a quiet clinking sound reached her ears, and she strained to find which direction it was coming from. She followed it and the noise grew louder until she recognized it as tools clanking against metal.

Rounding a corner, she saw him, laying on his back beneath a motor, his arm muscles bulging as he loosened a stubborn screw until it finally came free. Letting out a breath in relief, he rolled to his side and stood, noticing her as he did so. Surprise crossed his face for the briefest of moments before his features turned to stone, and he turned away from her to gather his tools.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice hard and irritated. "I thought we were done here."

He brushed past her, carrying the tools back toward the main part of the depot, and she smelled the mixture of sweat and grease on him that heightened her senses and did funny things to her heart. Aggravated that he was trying to dismiss her, she followed him, grabbing his arm and forcing him to stop. She wasn't as strong as him, but her fingers in his bicep caught his attention, and he dropped the tools to turn and glare angrily down at her through the shadows.

"I came here to tell you to stay away from me," she stated, her jaw setting with determination as she forced herself to stare back into his penetrating gaze.

"It seems we agree on something," he snarked, turning away once more and forgetting the tools as he tried to move away from her again.

Huffing peevishly, she swiftly darted around him, blocking his path toward the bus. "You don't understand. I can't be around you; we can't be around each other. Never again. I mean it."

Scowling down at her, Derek frowned sourly. "And I don't think you understand that I have no problem staying away from you. So, you can go now." Waving her off like a pestering fly, his eyes widened as he looked down at her, his gaze asking why she wasn't already gone.

"You're so... infuriating!" she exclaimed, wanting to hit him but resisting. Her desire to protect him from Peter's plan, from her, was driving up her blood pressure and she was panicked that she wouldn't be able to stop it.

"Why am I the infuriating one?!" he asked, provoked. "You're happy with Jackson and your life is back to its fluffy little teenage dream, but you're the one standing here pissing me off and getting in my way while I'm trying to mind my own business."

She ground her teeth together and pursed her lips, drawing in a measured breath before snapping back at him, "My life is not a teenage dream. I have plenty to worry about!"

"Oh really?!" he asked with feigned incredulousness, "You're the most popular girl in school, you probably won Prom queen despite the fact you were bleeding to death at the time, and you've got your perfect little white picket fence life planned out for you. You'll have two point five kids with Jackson and be a wealthy socialite who dies happy on her silk sheets. Don't tell me you're the one with the problems."

Throwing her hands up in annoyance, she growled angrily. "I forgot: you're Mr. Sour Wolf who spends his days alone fixing things that will never run again and moaning over his dead, black heart!"

His jaw tightened at the words, and she saw his fists clench, but she knew he would never hit her. Instead, they stood glaring at one another for a moment, their chests rising and falling in rapid, angry breaths. A moment of silence hung between them as their anger cooled respectively, and Lydia finally looked away from him, remembering the reason she'd come here.

"I know you hate me, but I need you to listen to me," she said quietly, her eyes growing tired and sad as she looked back up at him. "I need you to stay away from me... for your own good."

He frowned slightly in confusion. "For my good, or yours?" he asked gently, stepping one step closer to her. She backed away from him but backed into a wall of metal piping and could move no further. She was trapped, unable to ignore him as he closed the gap between them.

"For... both of us."

Raising his eyebrows, he nodded and raised his chin, looking at her down the length of his nose. "Why is that? You're with Jackson, you said so yourself. Why should my proximity to you matter?"

He was closer to her now and she felt the heat radiating off of his body, the supernatural body heat of a werewolf. The smell of him, sweat and grease, clouded around her, muddling her thoughts and filling her imagination with what-if situations. Forcing herself to focus, she stared back at him, her glare softening as he came slowly closer but didn't touch her.

"It matters because... because Jackson is my boyfriend, and he's in a very precarious place right now. He needs me." She said the words like rote, reciting them off of her head as if she'd practiced them for weeks.

He felt inches from her now, their shirts touching but he carefully kept his skin from touching hers as he gazed down at her, the desire he still felt for her heating up his gaze and burning into her.

"Do you love him?" he asked quietly, a mixture of fear that she would say yes and excitement that she may say no in his voice.

"Why would you even ask such a thing?" she floundered, laughing off the question and refusing to answer. But Derek wouldn't let her get off so easily.

"Look into my eyes and tell me," he said sharply, his fingers gently grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at him, "Do you love him?"

Her heart raced in her chest, and she forced herself to calm down. She imagined he already knew the answer to the question, but he wanted to hear her say it. Knowing he could hear her heart beat, she mentally chided herself and forced herself to relax. She could do this. This would be her one chance to keep him away from her once and for all. It broke her to imagine never seeing him again, but she must do this. Peter would kill him, would make her kill him, and she couldn't. She just... couldn't.

"I love Jackson," she spoke the words firmly, staring resolutely into his immeasurable blue eyes the entire time.

His face was illegible as his hand dropped from her face and he nodded slightly. She couldn't tell if he was pleased or upset, angry or relieved. Something that had always interested her about Derek was how she couldn't read him, unlike everyone else she knew. His face was so complex, his emotions so well guarded and controlled, and it drove her insane. She remained pinned against the wall as if her shirt was stapled to the pipes, and he didn't move away from her even though his gaze dropped for a moment.

Relief spread over her, mixed with chagrin. She had convinced him she loved Jackson. That was why he was silent, taking it all in. She may not love Jackson anymore, but she could learn to care about him again. She could learn to love him down the road. And Derek would be safe.

Suddenly, his eyes were on her again, boring into her. Her heart jumped, and he was suddenly right in front of her, his hot breath cresting on her face as she stared, enthralled, into his breathtakingly blue eyes.

"You lied."

Two words. The statement was so simple, yet so damaging. He knew.

"I can hear your heart," he continued, his voice growing thick and husky. "You're lying."

His hand slid up her side, cupping her neck as she closed her eyes and tried to fight the burning desire seething through her body. Not wanting to miss a moment of him, her eyes snapped open and she saw him leaning toward her just like the other night. Only this time, he knew she'd been lying. He knew she loved him, and she could no longer deny it.

"Why did you lie to me, Lydia?" he murmured, his nose almost touching hers as he held her in thrall with his hand and those eyes.

"I..." she began, but her throat was too thick to continue. She released her breath almost imperceptibly, knowing it was pointless to try to feed him another lie.

Suddenly, she reached for him, her arms wrapping around his neck and pulling his lips down onto hers. He kissed her back fervently, his arms lacing around her and lifting her from the ground. The desire she felt for him was painful in its intensity, and her mind burned with it. Deep inside, she knew this shouldn't be happening - she shouldn't be feeling this way - that it put him in mortal danger, but she could no longer resist. She had tried lying to him, tried pushing him away, but Peter was right. She was the one who couldn't let go. She couldn't walk away, she had to know what it felt like to be consumed by a passion like what she felt when she looked at Derek.

He fell back into the opposite wall, holding her by her hips and sliding down as they kissed one another hotly. His bottom hit the floor, and her knees bent so she was straddling him, her fingers tearing at his dirty wifebeater and yanking it off over his head. Her breaths were ragged, and her heart palpitated until she was sure it would explode in her chest. Her stomach lurched with excitement, and her thighs quivered with expectation. Despite the fact she was the most popular girl in school, she was surprisingly still a virgin. As she kissed him, her need for him overwhelmed her and she wanted him like she had wanted no man before. Even when she'd loved Jackson, they'd made out many times, but she'd never gotten to the point of going all the way with him. It simply hadn't happened.

Now, she needed it to happen. She wanted Derek to take that one thing from her she could only give to one person.

Lifting her arms, stopping kissing him only long enough for him to pull her shirt off, she dove back into his lips the moment it was gone. Her hands cradled his face and ran down his chest, feeling the rippling hard muscles there. The tickle of desire sparked between her legs, and she moaned quietly when his fingers found the rim of her jeans, easily tearing them when he couldn't undo the button. Scrambling onto her knees, she moved backward as he rose to his knees and pushed her onto her back on the floor. Her jeans were gone in a flash, as were his, and their hot skin stuck together as her legs rose to surround him.

"Are you sure about this?" he whispered huskily into her ear as he kissed her neck and she moaned a bit louder from the pleasure of his stubble tickling the tenderness of her neck.

"I've never wanted anything more," she answered honestly as he stopped kissing her and looked into her eyes. This time, he knew she was telling the truth.

Her chest burned slowly from the passion, and she obeyed as he sat up and removed her underwear. Pushing his own away, he fell over on her, his lips tracing hot marks down her chest and onto her stomach. Her ragged breaths begged him to stop teasing her, and she gripped him desperately as he kissed her mouth again, sliding into her impatiently. She cried out against his mouth from the surprise and pleasure of feeling him where she'd never felt a man before, and her fingers dug into his back as she clung to him in the throes of passion. Her head spun from the wave of ecstasy that barraged her, resonating from her waist out into her extremities in a split second. Derek groaned on top of her, his own release coming simultaneously, and his arms shook with pent up energy as he propped himself up over her, their breathing intermingling in exhausted gasps.

Her green eyes opened and looked adoringly up at him just as he looked down at her, and she craned upward to kiss his lips sweetly. When he moved off of her, it was too soon, and she curled up into him as he lay back on the floor. His arms hugged her to his chest and held her protectively there, his lips kissing the top of her red hair.

"I love you," he whispered, the words feeling strange on his tongue as he had never said them before. Her heart jumped happily in her chest, and she looked up at him with a content smile on her face. "I love you, Derek." She would think about the repercussions of that confession later. For now, she could only think about being with him and feeling his heartbeat against her cheek as she nestled into his side and fell asleep.


	14. Chapter 14

Lydia giggled, and clamped her hand over her mouth as she stumbled and fell onto her bed on her back. Laughing his gruff laugh, Derek straddled her, tickling her sides until she had to grab a pillow and cover her face so her parents wouldn't hear her laughing. Batting his hands away, she sat up and kissed him deeply on his lips, smiling when she felt him kiss her back.

Pulling away only when she needed to breathe, she placed a finger over his lips and shushed him, listening to the hallway outside of her room. Footsteps echoed down the hardwood floor, and she smiled mischievously up at him, kissing him quickly as one of her parents moved away down the hallway. She'd 'gone to bed' two hours before, and had in fact been with Derek since then. They had been sneaking around like this for two weeks now, and she felt like she was high on happiness all the time. She had managed to suppress her worries about Peter's evil plans, and she'd enjoyed Derek thoroughly.

After he'd taken her virginity at the train depot, they'd been together every night since. A few times, she'd snuck out of her house to spend the night with him, but most nights he climbed into her bedroom window and hid from her, surprising her when she got out of the shower. She'd surprised him in her own way a few times, wearing nothing but a towel or getting a shower before he arrived and hiding from him until he found her and kissed her all over, ending in them having sex in her closet. It was all like a dream, and she was happier than she'd ever been. Peter's plan seemed like a distant shadow in the past.

Sliding farther up on her bed, Derek crawling after her, kissing her the whole time, Lydia smiled and laid back into her pillows, her hands going to his hair and running through it as she looked up at him. His blue eyes examined her so candidly, she felt her heart leap, and he smiled. She knew he could hear her heart, and he enjoyed hearing it jitter when he was around. He'd even teased her about it, but she didn't mind. His smile was enough for her.

"When are we going to tell everyone about us?" he asked gruffly, laying on his side next to her, his fingertips running over her collarbone and caressing her jawline. Sighing quietly, she closed her eyes and reveled in his touch for a moment before answering him.

"It's complicated," she replied. He snorted and nodded in understanding.

"You don't have to tell me it's complicated. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it's been keeping this a secret from Scott? And don't get me started on Stiles," he complained, causing her to smile in amusement. "You do realize Stiles is going to singlehandedly kill me when he finds out, right?"

Playfully shoving him, she giggled and scooted closer to him so he was above her and she was gazing up at him. "You should've seen Jackson's face when I broke up with him and didn't explain why. I was afraid he might turn back into a kanima right there in the middle of the hallway." Her nose scrunched up at the unpleasant memory, and Jackson belittling her to make himself feel better since she'd dumped him.

"He's just going to have to get over it," Derek whispered conspiratorially, his mouth finding her neck below her ear and sending shivers of delight through her petite frame. "Because you belong to me now."

His words sent a chill through her, unrelated to desire and her brow drew down in consternation. She belonged to him, and he belonged to her. That sounded awfully serious, and suddenly, Peter's words crashed over her, reminding her of his plan. _You will be Derek's mate_.

The words reverberated around in her mind, and Derek became aware that she had spaced out, stopping his kisses to look at her with a frown on his handsome face. "Lydia... what's wrong?"

Realizing she was lost in thought, she blinked and looked at him with an apologetic smile. "What? Oh, nothing," she lied, her hand finding the side of his face and gently running her fingers over the familiar stubble there. He reached up and gently grabbed her wrist, drawing her attention once more as his eyebrows raised, wanting an explanation.

"It's nothing. I'm fine," she assured him, turning her hips so they were facing one another on her bed. "Just something you said." She smiled shyly, wrinkling her nose in a meek grin.

"About you belonging to me?" he asked, instantly knowing what she'd been thinking. He seemed to be able to see into her soul at times. Nodding absently, she drew circles with her index finger on his muscular shoulder, avoiding his eyes. She felt energized as he repeated the words, even as the pit of her stomach clenched with worry over Peter's words that first night after he'd possessed her to drug Derek.

"I didn't mean-"

"It's fine, really," she cut him off gently, shaking her head and moving away from him to sit up on the side of the bed. "I shouldn't have even brought it up. Please just forget it."

He sat up behind her, sliding across the bed swiftly and dropping his legs on either side of her so her back was against his chest. His arms circled her, pulling her against him, and she closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of him wrapped around her.

"Lydia... I want you to be my mate," he whispered into her ear, making her heart leap about in her chest. Heat rose in her face and she sighed imperceptibly. She could hear Peter's voice echoing in her head, _It's the things we accomplish without ever trying that are the most effective, don't you think?_

Leaning back against him, her lover and her friend, she sucked in a long breath and turned slightly so she could see the side of his face, her nose pressed to his cheek. "I already am. I'm yours. I'll never belong to anyone else."

For the first time, she felt his heart beating against her back, the beat rapid and excited and she knew he was happy with her answer. He leaned her back and kissed her deeply on her lips, a thankful and sweet kiss. A twinge of guilt swept into her throat, but she ignored it. Peter's all-knowing voice was there again, in her head saying, _You can't live without knowing, my little wolfsbane._ She had known it then, and she knew it especially now: she was desperatedly in love with Derek Hale.

It had started as an uneasy alliance, transformed into a mutual friendship, and somewhere along the path had morphed into something much more. She felt a bond with him unlike anything she'd felt with anyone before. She wondered if there was some magical sort of connection a werewolf felt with his mate, like imprinting on someone. What she had told Derek was true: no matter what happened, she would always be his. She couldn't ignore it, and she couldn't forget it. No matter what Peter did to her, she would always love Derek.

"Being the mate to a werewolf - especially an alpha - isn't easy," Derek informed her tenderly, hugging her to his chest as he spoke softly into her ear. "My enemies will try to hurt you to get to me."

"I'm strong enough to take care of myself. You know that," she piped in, elbowing him playfully in the ribs. He chuckled briefly but grew serious again quickly.

"I know you're strong, but now it's my life to protect you," he purred into her ear, melting her with his romantic words. She leaned back into him, the heat of his breath warming her neck and sending pleasant tingles throughout her body.

"I vow to protect you with my life too," she promised impulsively, shifting and turning so she could look him in the eyes. "I will do anything, go anywhere, for you. You don't understand how much I love you, Derek." She put her arms around his shoulders and kissed him passionately, her mind reeling from the kiss like it always did even after two weeks of kissing him over and over again.

He kissed her back, dropping her back on the bed and laying over her. When he stopped kissing her, he smiled down at her and brushed her red hair out of her eyes. "Werewolves mate for life, you know." He stated it teasingly, the twinkle in his eyes giving him away. She smiled brilliantly, forgetting her worries about Peter. "Good because I couldn't live without you."

Pulling him with all of her might, her lips met with his and she lost herself in his touch, forgetting about everything but the two of them.


	15. Chapter 15

She couldn't stop smiling. Everyone was going to know she was hiding something simply because she couldn't contain her happiness. Lacing her fingers together over her stomach, she pressed in on her diaphragm and bit her bottom lip to push down her excitement as she looked up at the clock. Thirty minutes until school was over and she could be with him again.

Derek had asked her to be his mate. She was on cloud nine. Despite Peter's plan, she couldn't hold in how overjoyed she was that Derek loved her enough to make her his mate. She'd fallen right into the trap Peter had laid for her, fallen into his plan so perfectly, and it had all been her choice. Despite that fact, she was a girl in love, and what could be expected of her? For the guy she was in love with to love her back... that was more than most girls could ask for.

"Lydia Martin!" the speakers overhead shrieked in a crackling voice. "Report to the principal's office. Lydia Martin."

Sighing, she gathered her books from the floor beside her desk and dismissed herself from the classroom. As she headed for the office, a vague feeling of dread clouded over her good mood. Gerard... she'd forgotten about him. Surely he wasn't thrilled that she'd broken the kanima curse. He hadn't confronted her since she'd last seen him fleeing from Derek the night of the Prom, but she didn't doubt this visit to the principal's office would be anything but normal.

"Ah, Lydia," chimed the secretary as she entered. Lydia offered her a smile and took a seat where the woman directed, waiting for Gerard to admit her to his room. When his door swung inward, his conniving face smiled at her and beckoned her to come in. Rising, she raised her chin and marched inside, feeling as if the door to a cage was clanged closed behind her as the door shut.

"Take a seat," he spoke, his voice like honey laced with cyanide.

"I'd rather stand," she replied simply, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Very well," he assented, sliding into his office chair and leaning back, steepling his fingers over his stomach and smiling benignly at her. "I'm sure you've got some idea as to why I've requested your presence."

"You want to know Peter's plan," she answered wisely, shaking her head, "I already told you, I don't know."

"And I know you're lying, so now we've got an understanding," he replied succinctly, his eyes flashing with irritation. "Now that we've moved past that, let's get to the point." Leaning over onto his desk, he fixed his penetrating gaze on her, but she refused to budge. She stared him down as he continued.

"I have a feeling he's using you to get something that he wants from Derek."

The old man's intuition astounded her, but she refused to show it on her face. She was Derek's mate now. It was her job to protect him just as he would protect her. She'd already set her mind to resist Peter with all of her will if he tried to make her follow through with his demands. He wouldn't be happy, but she didn't care. She would die before she would watch the love of her life murdered.

When she didn't respond, Gerard nodded to himself and sat back, lacing his fingers together and resting his hands in his lap. "I will take your silence as a clue that I'm close to the truth. So what exactly is it that he wants?"

"I'm pretty sure you both want the same thing," she replied finally, her voice edgy and tight. "You're both murderers. You have a lot in common actually." Her feisty side had shown itself, and she pursed her lips angrily to refrain from snapping at him again.

Gerard smiled, knowing he'd managed to get under her skin. "Yes, Peter Hale and I have a lot in common."

She caught the briefest glimpse of the round, silver case he carried with him at all times seconds before it unhinged and he shook it at her, a cloud of powder engulfed her. Coughing at the nauseating smell, she covered her mouth, but it was too late. She got a flashback of Derek's face when she blew the wolfsbane dust in his face, and her eyes widened as she fell to the floor. But she wasn't a werewolf... she was immune. This couldn't be the same thing, plus the powder was white and not purple.

Writhing on the floor, her eyes wide and her tongue swollen so she couldn't speak, she looked up to see Gerard leaning over her as her vision began to go blurry around the edges. "We'll just have to see how useful you are."

Her vision blurred completely and went black.

* * *

Groaning to herself, Lydia's head rolled back and forth slowly as she began to wake up. Darkness surrounded her, and for a moment she thought she may be blind. However, upon opening her eyes, she realized it was night time. Her head ached and her back was cold and stiff as she looked around her slowly to gather some idea of where she was.

A constant white noise filled her ears, and she frowned, turning her head to the right to see she was laying about twenty feet from the river that ran around the outside of Beacon Hills. She was stiff from laying on the rocky shore, and the night was cool, chilling her as she realized she appeared to be alone. Knowing better than to think Gerard would simply drug her and dump her beside the river, she suspected he and his hunters were somewhere nearby, but she could hear nothing other than the rushing water.

Sitting up slowly, she held her head in her hands and sighed as a dizzy spell swirled around her. When it passed, she looked up once more and her heart leapt in her chest to see red eyes watching her from the trees. Panic hit her like a wave, and she moved to stand, to run, to do anything at all, and then Derek materialized out of the forest. She was relieved to see him, but knowing Gerard had wanted him to come save her, blood rushed to her head in fear for him.

"Derek..." she spoke, her throat thick from the drugging. He moved swiftly to her side, his arm circling her shoulders and giving her support. The feel of him was invigorating, but he wasn't safe.

"Lydia, what happened? I went by the school when you weren't home, and the secretary told me you'd gone home ill with Gerard." He frowned at the name, knowing better than to believe Gerard would be kind enough to give Derek Hale's mate a ride home from school. "I followed your scent and it led me here."

She was desperately trying to piece the clues together - How had Gerard gotten her here without his scent being in the air? Was Derek that worried about her that he had simply overlooked the hunter's scent? What was the drug the old man had blown in her face? - but her mind felt fuzzy and heavy from the drugs.

"Derek... you have to get out of here..." she managed, weakly looking up at him as he frowned in confusion.

"I'm not leaving you, what are you talking about?" He shifted his weight, moving so he could better see her face, and she noticed the moon glint off of his wolf eyes. Lifting her hand, she touched his cheek and tried to make him listen to her.

"You're in danger... Gerard drugged me... It's a trap," she revealed, wishing her muscles didn't feel like lead so she could get up and force him to leave.

"He drugged you? Why... what's going on?" He glanced around, rising swiftly to his feet as he did so. Her hand went to his ankle for support and comfort as he swiveled around, sniffing the air and glaring into the trees.

She heard only a brief, high-pitched twang before an arrow pierced Derek's shoulder and he cried out, stumbling back a few steps. "No!" she exclaimed, reaching for him but finding her legs unable to move. "Derek!"

He easily tore the arrow out of his shoulder, grinding his teeth together as Gerard and a group of three hunters appeared out of the dark woods. The old hunter smiled that poisonous smile as Derek growled at him.

"Just as I suspected, the alpha arrives to protect what he believes is his." Lydia's heart skipped a beat. How could Gerard know so much? Had he honestly guessed they were more serious than anyone knew? She doubted the man could have that much intuition. When neither of them responded, Gerard laughed, a wicked, low sound that hurt her ears.

"Come now, Derek. You didn't honestly believe you were hiding anything, did you?" he asked, his voice chilling her as he took a step closer. Derek refused to move from her side, protectively hovering over her with his fists clenched. She wished she could tell him to attack, take advantage of Gerard's monologuing to kill the evil man once and for all, but her tongue was still too thick and she knew Derek would stubbornly refuse to leave her anyway.

"The way you protected her at the Prom... the way you saved her from Jackson in the locker room..." he continued, sparking Lydia's attention. "Don't you think I can recognize a mated werewolf when I see one?"

Her heart fell even as he heard Derek's low, threatening growl. Gerard was smarter than she'd given him credit for. She suddenly felt severely outnumbered, by this sly old hunter and by Peter who was also getting exactly what he wanted, however indirectly. She may not be the one to kill Derek, but someone else would, and it was still her fault. She made him weak because she was weak and he had promised to protect her.

"Derek... go... please," she begged, managing the words over the cotton in her mouth.

"I'm not going to leave you," he murmured to her under his breath. She appreciated his loyalty, but it would kill her to watch him die.

"I would rather live without you... than watch that snake kill you..." she hissed, glaring at Gerard. Derek's clawed hand touched her shoulder, squeezing gently to tell her he appreciated the words.

"Isn't that sweet?" Gerard piped in, pulling off one of his gloves one finger at the time. "She believes she's in love with you, Derek. How'd you manage that?" He withdrew the small silver case from his pocket, and Lydia's eyes widened before narrowing in anger.

"I see you recognize this, sweetheart. Did you enjoy the first dose? It's a magical remedy, you see, something an old warlock friend of mine gave me for circumstances like this. The first bout is relatively easy: blurred vision, dizziness, lethargy, and rare cases of blackouts." He glanced nonchalantly over at her and shrugged slightly. "Well, not that rare, I suppose. Anyway, it's the second dose that really does the trick. Unfortunately, I've never seen a victim of the second round survive. Shall we see how immune you are to this?"

He laughed, the three hunters with him smiling darkly, and Derek roared furiously at him. Fixing him with a scornful look, Gerard shook a cautioning finger at him. "Come now, Derek. You wouldn't want silver poisoning directly in your heart this time, would you?"

The words curdled Lydia's blood and she fought to stand, to find something to throw at him, but she still couldn't move. A mild feeling had reached the toes on her left foot, but she couldn't stand and was helpless as the old man laughed evilly once more.

"Gerard, I know we agreed to make this as drawn-out as possible, but don't you think you've gone a bit overboard?" came a familiar voice, drawing everyone's attention toward the trees to the side of the group.

Peter appeared from the darkness, clad in his familiar black trenchcoat, his brown hair combed back from his face and his gait smooth and predatory as he glided toward the party. Lydia's eyes widened in shock, and she felt Derek tense at her side. They were severely outnumbered.

"Hello again, Lydia," Peter purred, smiling at her. "It appears I was right after all?"

Her jaw clenched and she felt Derek step back in confusion. "What is he talking about, Lydia?" he asked.

Looking up at him, she saw the fluster in his eyes, and her heart fell.

"You haven't told him?" Peter asked incredulously, feigning a girlish gasp. "I thought you two were a team, but you didn't tell him about our little deal?"

"We never had a deal," she snapped, heat rising in her face.

"What deal? What is going on?" Derek asked impatiently, looking from Gerard to Peter then down to her.

"Oh, but we did," the elder werewolf continued ardently, pacing back and forth while the hunters kept their arrows trained on the alpha guarding his human mate. "Let me refresh your memory. You were to make Derek fall in love with you, become his mate, and then kill him. Since you're immune to a werewolf's bite, it would be rather impossible for him to fight back, and boom, bye bye Derek." Peter smiled maliciously as Derek's jaw dropped open and he backed away from her.

Her hand reached out for him, but he was shaking his head, staring at her with betrayal in his blue eyes. "Derek, don't listen to him! I never... I didn't..."

"You never loved me," he whispered, backing toward the river. "It was all a lie so you could manipulate me... to make me turn you into my mate... so you could kill me."

"No! My love for you has never been a lie. I couldn't lie to you, and you know that," she pleaded, trying to shift her body to go to him, but her strength was still too far gone. "I've never been able to lie to you. I only tried once, and I failed miserably. Please! You know this. You know me."

"I have no idea who you are..." he whispered, the pain and betrayal in his voice tearing her heart into pieces. Tears sprang to her eyes, pouring down her cheeks as she reached for him and he backed away again even though she had no way of actually touching him across the distance he'd put between them.

"I was stupid enough to believe you," he added, shaking his head. The eminent danger of the lurking hunters and Peter had left his mind now, his heart broken and his soul torn with betrayal.

"Derek, please..." she sobbed, trying to pull herself to him across the rocks. "Please... I love you! More than anything... more than life itself."

"Well, that's fortunate," Gerard spoke, flicking his wrist. Instantly, all three hunters let loose their arrows, all three striking Lydia and throwing her back onto the ground with cry. She screamed from the pain which turned her vision red. Despite her atrophied strength, she writhed on the ground, realizing the arrowheads had been laced with the deadly magical powder Gerard had threatened her with.

On the edges of her consciousness, she heard a furious roar and yells from the men, but she could see nothing through the red haze as the drug entered her bloodstream. An arrow protruded from each of her shoulders and one lodged in her hip, her body screamed in pain. Tears ran from her eyes and into her ears, staining her face with the grief of betraying Derek however unintentionally.

Through the haze of the pain and drugs, Peter's face appeared in her vision, hovering over her with a small smile on his face. "Well done, Lydia," he commended her as she felt like she was choking on the pain. "You see, the plan was never to have you directly kill Derek. It was more something like him falling in love with you, and you falling in love with him, and him finding out he'd been betrayed by the one girl he's ever loved. Betrayal is so much more deadly than actual murder. Now he's weak and broken, and he'll be so easy to pick off... after I torture him of course."

He smiled triumphantly and she wished she could punch him, but instead she cringed and cried from the shooting pains throughout her petite frame. Peter's plan had never been for her to kill Derek. It had been for her to weaken him by falling in love with her and having his heart broken. She was merely a pawn, an instrument to bring down the stronger target.

As she sobbed, her throat swelling and closing until she could barely breath, she said one word with her last breath, "Derek..."


	16. Chapter 16

As Lydia woke slowly to bright white lights, she vaguely thought to herself that this was the most she'd ever been in the hospital in her entire life. An annoying, insistent beeping pinged in her ear, and only as she regained more consciousness did she recognize it as a heart monitor. She was alive.

Somehow, she had managed to deny Gerard the satisfaction of killing her with the second dose of his mystery potion, and although she felt like her brain was made out of concrete, she was alive. The thought thrilled her until she remembered that night. Derek knew about Peter's plan, thought she had betrayed him, and he was probably dead. Gerard and Peter had been plotting together the entire time, plotting to push her toward Derek, to break his heart and his soul. But the plan had backfired. She had fallen in love with him. She hadn't only been a pawn, manipulating him. No, she truly loved Derek Hale, and her heart broke as she remembered the utter betrayal on his face, and the hurt. What hurt the most was knowing that she'd met him because of Peter's plan, whether she'd agreed to carry through with it or not. She hadn't been honest with him, once she knew she could trust him, and told him Peter's plan so they could fight against him together.

Although she hadn't intentionally betrayed him, she felt as if she had and that broke her heart even more. A tear rolled down her cheek and she squeezed her eyes closed and her lips began to tremble with the sobs rising in her throat.

"Do you have a lot of pain, dear?" asked a worried voice, and she opened her eyes to see the older nurse she'd had the first time she'd been admitted. Shaking her head but not trusting her voice, she tried to smile and failed.

Gently patting her hand, the nurse checked the monitors and then smiled brightly at her. "We're beginning to become friends," she joked, adjusting a few settings on the machines and checking her iv. Lydia smiled sadly and looked down at her body. As feeling began to come into her limbs, she felt the bandages taped to her shoulders and one covering her hip where the arrows had hit her. Wiggling her toes, she felt the strain on her hip and winced slightly, biting her lip as the nurse frowned worriedly at her.

"You've been unconscious for about two days," the nurse informed her, checking her chart. "It's a good thing that handsome young man brought you in. You may not have made it. Did you know you had roofies in your system?!"

Lydia knew it wasn't a roofie, but if that's what the hospital staff wanted to call it, then so be it. She was more attuned to the 'handsome young man' the nurse mentioned. Could Derek have saved her life even though he hated her now?

"Young man... what young man?" she asked, her voice filling with hope.

"Oh, he's been waiting for you to wake up, been keeping your parents company," the nurse replied simply, hanging the chart back on the hook on the end of her bed. "The doctor will be in in a few minutes to check in and give you an update on your status. You might be able to go home now that you're awake!" She patted Lydia's foot and walked for the exit. "I'll tell your boyfriend he can see you now."

Her heart leapt at the word 'boyfriend' although she still doubted it was Derek. The nurse didn't know Derek was (or at least had been) her boyfriend, so it could be Stiles for all she knew. Shifting expectantly in the bed, she watched the door fervently, ignoring the aches in her body as her heart fluttered around in her chest with anticipation.

When the door opened, she could barely swallow as she saw him: Derek. He looked tired, but otherwise alive and well. Her relief that Gerard or Peter hadn't killed him overwhelmed her, along with the memories of his eyes when he'd found out she betrayed his trust. Tears welled into her eyes instantly at the sight of him, blurring her vision so she wiped at her eyes furiously, afraid if she couldn't see him then he wasn't really there.

He came to a stop at the end of the bed, refusing to look up at her, his shoulders rising and falling with each careful breath he took. She wanted to leap out of the bed and throw herself around him, to kiss him and just hold him until she fell asleep in his arms. She wanted to yell how much she loved him, how much she ached for him to look at her with those infinite blue eyes.

Finally, he raised his head and looked at her, and all of the passion she'd seen every time he looked at her was gone. Her heart broke into a million pieces, and she swallowed a sob. The hurt, the betrayal, in his eyes as he examined her tore her wide open, making her feel naked and exposed. She felt like a little girl in that gaze, not like the strong, beautiful woman she'd been for the past few months.

"Derek..."

He shook his head and looked down at the foot of the bed, his hands gripping it until his knuckles turned white and the bed creaked, straining against his inhuman strength. "Don't," he cut her off. He sighed audibly and glanced toward the room's window before looking back at her.

"I only stayed to make sure you were alive," he admitted, his voice hard and not hinting at any emotion he may still feel for her. "I'm leaving Beacon Hills. There's nothing here for me anymore."

Her mouth fell open to say she was here for him, but she knew it was pointless. The cold unfeeling in his eyes was enough to tell her he hated her. Her fingers gripped the blankets on her bed as more tears poured out of her eyes. She tried to say his name, tried to think of the words that would make him forgive her and stay with her, but she couldn't. She was only able to manage one thought.

"I thought... werewolves mated for life."

He snorted and smiled a dark, angry smile. "They do, but apparently, humans don't. Goodbye, Lydia."

With that, he turned his back on her and left the room. Throwing her head back against the pillows on her bed, she began sobbing until her throat felt raw and her head hurt. She wanted to kick and scream and chase after him, begging him to stay and pledging her undying love for him, but she couldn't do any of those things. She could feel she didn't have the strength to get out of the bed, and her words would do no good against his hardened heart. He'd stayed to insure she was alive, but for what? She didn't want to live without him, and knowing he hated her was worse than death.

The door opened, and she wiped ferociously at her face, swallowing her sobs and hoping for the mere glimmer of a second that Derek had returned to take back everything he said. To her chagrin, it was the doctor instead.

"Is everything alright, Miss Martin?" he asked. She nodded and cleared her throat.

"I'm fine. Just a little pain, that's all," she lied.

"Ah, yes, well you sustained several injuries and had a rufilin-like substance in your system, so pain is only understandable. I'll prescribe you with a strong ibuprofen. Wouldn't want to give you anything stronger," he amended, checking her chart and smiling pleasantly at her.

"Why is that?" she asked in confusion. "Will it react badly with the drugs that were in my system?"

"Well, there is that chance, but that isn't the only reason, of course," he said, looking at her expectantly as if she was supposed to already know what he meant. "Of course the nurse didn't tell you..."

Her brow furrowed in befuddlement as she shook her head, the heart monitor beating quicker with her agitation. She imagined hundreds of life-threatening diseases plaguing her in her head, and she sucked in fast, frightened breaths as the doctor shook his head and chuckled.

"I can't prescribe you anything stronger than ibuprofen, Miss Martin, because you're pregnant."

* * *

**If you enjoyed _Wolfsbane_, stay tuned for the sequel, _Wolfsblood_, coming soon!**


	17. Epilogue

Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews and comments on Wolfsbane! You have all inspired me so much. If you loved this story, continue the series by reading **Wolfsblood **(available now on a fanfiction near you), the second story in the trilogy. Thank you again for being so amazing!

You can also follow me on tumblr (ijustfangirledeverywhere) for updates on my fics.


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